


She Will

by peninsulam



Series: She Will [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anger, Bisexual Character, F/F, F/M, Getting Back Together, Guilt, Microaggressions, Polyamory, Post-Reichenbach, Relationship Negotiation, Sherlock Holmes Returns after Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:49:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peninsulam/pseuds/peninsulam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“If Sherlock…”</i><br/><i>“Yeah, if Sherlock. If Sherlock Holmes were here he’d be calling you an idiot, he’d be calling me a slag, </i>he’d<i> still be a bloody fraud, and this girl would still be dead.”</i></p>
<p>Three years after the Reichenbach Fall, Sally is still putting herself back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Will

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to all the various and wonderful people on Tumblr and in the Antidiogenes Club chat who encouraged me to write this.
> 
> Even more thanks to [lbmisscharlie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie) and to [tartanfics](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tartanfics), for their near-saintly patience in helping me to turn this into the story I wanted it to be.
> 
> Trigger warning: this story contains references to (but no descriptions of) sexual abuse.

Keisha Walters’s narrow bedroom was crowded with too many bodies: five living, one not. There was something wrong with the dead girl, something Sally was chasing round in circles, like a name she couldn’t quite remember. She took a moment to face the fogged window and remind herself of breathing; she imagined it was autumn and wisps of vapor were suspended in front of her face. Wishful thinking, that. It was July, in the middle of a bloody heat wave, and her temper was up high in her throat, not going anywhere. Anderson coughed impatiently behind her, and she bit her tongue to stop the bile coming out.

“Asphyxiation. Clear as day.”

Sally turned back to Anderson, cocooned in blue, body tense like he was ready to run. “It feels wrong.”

“Yeah, I know she was young, Sally…”

“I’m not being sentimental, prick. It all just looks too careful. It’s neat, yeah? Tidy. You don’t think she’d have knocked over the bin by the chair or something? She’d have been thrashing, wouldn’t she.”

“We’ll run a tox screen. Check for any evidence of assault. But there’s nothing here. She hanged herself, Sally. Stop it with the maternal instincts and look around a bit.”

Sally leaned up against the doorframe and crossed her arms over her chest, doing what she could to hold herself back. She saw Greg glance up at them from across the hall in the mum’s room, obviously listening in. “Maternal my arse, Paul, there’s something we’re missing. It’s obvious, there’s something else here. Must be.” Damn it. She hadn’t meant to use his first name.They looked at each other, both glaring. Sally willed him to say it, but he was immune to subtlety, as usual. “Say it.”

“If Sherlock…”

“Yeah, if Sherlock. If Sherlock Holmes were here he’d be calling you an idiot, he’d be calling me a slag, _he’d_ still be a bloody fraud, and this girl would still be dead.” Anderson looked stung, at least, and then angry, tense with the knowledge that he couldn’t defend himself. The body looked up at them from the floor: Keisha Walters, 17, Willesden. Hanged to death in her bedroom. Or hanged after death. There was something niggling at her still, and not Anderson’s voice. She’d ended it with him almost three years ago, not so long after Holmes had killed himself. Even now she had to work to keep her emotions in check around him, to see him at office holiday parties without actually kicking him in the bollocks. But days like this one, when they had to actually interact, to work together like people who didn’t want to tear each other to bits, she may as well have been broadcasting her disgust to the world.

“All I’m saying is it looks obvious from where I’m standin—”

“It would, wouldn’t it?” She spoke more angrily than she’d meant to. Greg was walking over now, frowning.

“--and I don’t think you’re going to find anything to contradict me here. There’s a bloody note. You need to stop looking for things that aren’t there. You think he was such a fraud, stop trying to be him.”

Sally let her molars clamp down on the right side of her tongue, felt the burn of her incisors pinching soft tissue. “That’s not a discussion I’m having with you here. Write it up and let me get on with it. If I need anything I’ll call you.” She wouldn’t need anything. She worked very, very hard at never needing anything at all, in particular from Anderson. He knew this.

“Yeah, well, Molly should be on tonight, I’m sure she’d be happy to go over it with you. You could have a good talk.” He was still bitter about it, she knew. For all that he’d been the one to end it, he had it in his head that he’d been left for a woman. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to see her single again.

“Piss off, Anderson.” His eyebrows went up at his surname. But she’d been retraining herself, not letting herself think of him as Paul anymore. It made passing thoughts of him feel less like panic. Just a coworker she had some history with. Just Anderson.

Greg had stopped in the hall, just behind her, and glowered at Anderson as he passed. Then he moved to the opposite side of the doorframe, hands shoved in his pockets, to glower at Sally in just the same fashion. “What’s this about Molly, now?”

“Don’t get your hackles up, Greg—” his eyebrows drew together, and dear god she needed to learn to separate her work life from her personal life. “Inspector. Yeah. She’s got nothing to do with it. Anderson’s just being a dick.”

“Figured as much.”

“You don’t have to protect her from me, you know. She’s the one who left.”

Greg pursed his lips and paused for a moment longer than he should have had to. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. We should grab a pint soon, off hours.”

“Like old times, right?” Sally smirked, remembered drinking with Greg and Molly two years ago, flirting with Molly cautiously, wondering all the while if she and Greg were getting together. Snatching her out from under his nose. “Yeah, maybe next week, then?”

“Sure. We’ll just clean up this mess first.”

\--

She’d spent Monday night and half of Tuesday following up with Walters’s friends. Three girls who dressed like her, had the same heavy hand with their makeup and the same verbal tics. There’s no tribe like a tribe of teenage girls, she remembered. Sally had recognized one of them — Annie, with the big hair pulled taut against her scalp and frothing up from behind her headband — from her time on the Child Abuse Investigation Team. Just like she had recognized Keisha. The girls were tearful, weary. Not surprised, though. She’d been depressed, they said. Just had a nasty breakup. Was drinking more than she ought, and on her own. Anderson was right about the suicide, then, except he couldn’t be. And she wasn’t sentimental, she was doing her job.

So she called in on Molly Wednesday night. Or rather, she stopped in to the morgue to check the progress on the initial tox screen analysis and get a look at the body again. Not that she knew what she was looking for, of course -- not Molly, certainly. She didn’t want to have to deal with it, all of it, two exes at once, Christ -- so, no, she didn’t really need to make a physical appearance, Lestrade had already forwarded her the report. But she wanted to, and she was, yes, actually hoping it would be Ollie or Michael on tonight. Not Molly.

And of course it wasn’t Ollie or Michael,of course it was Molly. It was always Molly, and she didn’t even see Sally come in, even though she was wearing her loudest heels. Sally had to clear her throat — clear her throat like this was a movie — to make Molly look up from her paperwork, down the long hallway gleaming under florescent lights. Her pen was hovering just above the desk, and she was chewing her thin lower lip when she realized the intruder was Sally. That look, that momentary slackness of her mouth, stopped Sally in her tracks. The chill from the tile floor crept up her legs: she could feel goosebumps prickling at the hem of her skirt. But. Here on business.

“Hi.”

“Hi. Did you need —” Molly stood up, hardened her face, pen still in her hand, ready to resume work.

“Yeah. The Walters case. I wanted to take another look at the body.”

“Yes, sure. Sure. That was Ollie’s, wasn’t it—” Her free hand made its way to comb through her hair, and she must have been distracted enough that she’d forgotten it was braided. She had to twist a knuckle out of the knot at the nape of her neck, and a large hank of her hair fell forward, sloppy. Completely gorgeous.

“I got the report, yeah. Something’s off about this one.” Sally moved closer. They’d been talking across the distance of the room, and wasn’t that ridiculous. She wouldn’t crowd her, but the memory of murmuring in her ear, voice so low it was hardly any louder than a thought, made her ache. They could talk like normal people, at least.

“Give me just—” Molly finished jotting a note on a pad of paper by her elbow, illegible round loops that she herself wouldn’t be able to decipher in ten minutes’ time. “Okay, there. Yes, Walters. That’s…yes, over here.” When Molly rounded the desk, the movement of her hip knocked a stack of folders to the ground. Sally swept forward to grab them, and Molly beat her to it. The folder at the top of the file was marked S. Holmes. Sally started.

“Holmes? What’s this about, then?”

“Oh, ah, nothing. His brother, you know. He’s reopening the fraud investigation, and they needed my report.” Molly was deeply flushed now, and she turned her back to rearrange the files on the desk.

“Well, he’s going to have a rough time with that one, isn’t he?”

“He’s family though. Course he’s trying, any brother would, especially one in his position.”

“Suppose so.”

“Walters, though. She’s…” Molly hand scrabbled over the desk for a clipboard and glanced at the top, mumbled something unintelligible to herself and walked the far wall, her sensible flats scuffing softly, an echo of Sally’s own clattering heels.

Sally took it as a compliment, that Molly hadn’t asked to see any paperwork before rolling the stainless steel drawer from the wall. Here, in a morgue on a rolling slab, Keisha was so much more dead than she’d seemed earlier, slumped in her room. “Oh. Quite young, then.” Molly flipped to the chart. “Seventeen, my god. And a suicide.” Her lashes flickered up, but her eyes skittered across Sally’s face, never quite making contact. “Those are hard on you, I know.”

“Course they’re hard. Nothing to do but solve it then.”

“Solve it. You don’t think it’s suicide, then? Sal—”

“Initial tox screen showed negative, I know. But we won’t know for sure for a while now, will we? Ollie didn’t catch anything else amiss either. But the scene didn’t sit right with me. Something’s off. Her mum says she’d been in her room, the room they found her, the whole time, but she didn’t thrash out, didn’t kick, nothing like that.”

“Well, sometimes they don’t. Ollie’s pretty thorough. I’d have thought, if there was something to find—”

“There has to be something.”

Molly’s eyes went soft, pitying. “Sally—”

“Paul…Anderson told me I’m trying to make myself out to be Holmes, today, speaking of.”

“Anderson’s a tit.” Molly looked up, affronted by her own language. “Why would he even say that? God, he’s unbearable.” Sally looked up, finally, from the cold body to the warm one. The small smile that was flickering at the corner of her mouth extinguished itself when she saw the nervous concern on Molly’s face. A lock of loose hair was still dangling over her small ear. She was silently moving her mouth in that awful parody of a smile, as she did when she was willing herself to speak.

“Say it.”

“I know you’re just trying to do the job.”

“But.”

“But did you know her?” Molly waited, and not getting an answer, said, “The girl? Or the mum? You did, didn’t you.” It wasn’t even a question. “I know you did, I can tell. You…you can’t save everyone, Sally.”

Sally could hear the blood rising in her ears, and took a long breath to push it down. Forced herself to stop grinding her molars, thinking about her upcoming appointment with the dentist who’d already pegged her as a lost cause. “It’s too late to save anyone. I just want to do the job right. I’ll call Ollie. See what else he has to say. I should let you get back to work.” Molly was protesting, flustered. She always looked most beautiful when she was indignant, blushing, her upper lip curling and trembling. Sally shook herself a bit, to hear the tail end of her sentence.

“— not healthy. Hello? Honestly, Sally. Look, go if you need to go, but you have to—.” God, why was everyone around her convinced that she was falling to pieces all of a sudden? Molly’s anger softened a bit, and she was back to concern once more. She stepped forward and raised her long, thin hand, to place it hesitantly on Sally’s shoulder. Inescapable eye contact now. Feather-light palm, trembling just enough that Sally couldn’t stop feeling it. “You need to talk to somebody. But I feel like I shouldn’t be the one to volunteer, you know? Only you seem so angry every time I see you, and.” She took a deep breath, and her voice tripped up on itself. Ah, yes. Remembering where this got them last time. Remembering that Sally had never really accepted the new boundaries of their relationship, probably. Not that you could call it a relationship anymore. “No. Not volunteering for it. I’m not sure what’s going on, but you are obviously not okay.” Sally opened her mouth to object, but Molly plowed over her. “Really, Sally, you’re not. And you’re bringing it to me at work; you know you can’t do that…do you have anyone you can talk to about whatever it is that’s going on?”

Sally stepped back, felt queasy and unsteady, like her guts were shifting inside of her. “I do, yeah. Didn’t mean to be a bother. Don’t—don’t worry on my account Molls. I’ll see you some other time then.” She turned, but Molly’s grip on her shoulder shifted with her.

“Look. Oh, hell, Sally, of course you wanted to be a bother. Why did you even come? Did you seriously think you’d find anything on her that Ollie wouldn’t?” Molly’s face was kinder than it needed to be. It always was, that was the miracle of it.

“I’ve missed you,” Sally said. “I mean. That’s not why I’m here.” Sally stepped a bit closer, undermining her words before she could realize it.She ducked her head down, embarrassed, and she could feel the warmth of Molly’s body through her lab coat. For a fraction of a second, she could feel Molly rocking forward, nearly pressed against her, just beginning to tip her head back as if to be kissed. But she rocked back, squeezing Sally’s shoulder in a friendly, comforting, utterly sterile way.

“Yeah. Well—”

“I did want to see the body, really. But. And I’m doing all right, I’m not. I’m not wasting away after you or anything. It’s just good to see you, you know?” Sally couldn’t look at Molly’s face any longer: eyes as sad as they’d been on the day she’d left.

“I know. Take care of yourself, all right? I hate to see you like this. I…I like to see you. But. Yeah. Anyway.”

“Anyway. I’ll leave you to it.” They nodded in unison, not wanting to prolong the moment. Neither moved back, prolonging it regardless. Sally took a breath and left, her heels tapping the chipped tile on the way out.

\--

The call came while she was out to dinner with Vik.

Vikram Appulingam was one of the few people Sally saw intentionally anymore. She was always bumping into friends and exes at the Met, or finding her mother or her sister waiting unannounced at her flat. Vikram, though, she could make plans with. She'd met him just a few months after Molly had left, during an investigation, of course, because when would she meet someone otherwise? He'd been at the scene of a murder in an office park, but hadn't seen a thing, and knew the victim only in the barest possible way. Sally spent all of five minutes questioning him, noted his lazy, handsome smile, his calm affability, and dismissed him with her card, in the unlikely event that he needed to follow up. A week later, he called.

"Sergeant Donovan? Yeah, it's Vikram Appulingam, you won't remember me. I was held for questioning for about two seconds after Elise Townsend's death." She did remember him, of course. She had a good memory, a sharp eye for details, and recognized his voice as soon as he'd said her name.

"Yes, I remember you, and we do have a suspect in custody, now, but I can’t release any further information to the public yet. Did you have any more information you wanted to pass along, Mr. Appulingam?"

"Oh, Vikram, please. Or Vik, people do call me Vik. That's reassuring to hear. But no, I was just wondering if you'd like to go out for a coffee on Tuesday." She paused for a moment, ready to give her boilerplate rebuttal to inappropriate propositions on the job. But she didn't have anything better going, did she? And he had been sort of vaguely attractive, in a bulbous, moleish sort of way. And rather nice besides: a calming presence on what had been a spectacularly stressful day.

"Sure. Yeah, that could be all right. Only I don't know when I'll have the time then: I don't exactly keep regular office hours. I'm at New Scotland Yard...are you nearby?"

"Not exactly, but I'm mostly a freelancer. I'm working out of cafes half the day anyway. If you think you might be around sometime in the morning I could just park myself at...um, what's near you? Caffe Grana? And you could give me a call when you've got a minute, then?"

"Oh! Well, yeah, if that's no trouble, sure. What's your number?" And so it started.

They met that week, and he was just as pleasant as she'd remembered. He didn't want to talk about his work, something in the tech industry, she honestly didn't care, and he didn't press about hers. Just said she looked interesting, competent, beautiful, the sort of woman you'd ring up for coffee given half a chance. They had almost nothing in common, but still managed to talk for longer than her lunch break strictly allowed, disagreeing amiably about two books, three films, and his awful taste in music. They both lived up in Brent, practically neighbors; did most of their business in Central London, of course, but had family, both of them, in NW. Vikram was good at flirting. Great at flirting, actually. He knew how to read body language as though it was spoken aloud, didn’t overstep his boundaries, and laughed often in a self-deprecating way that made it hard for Sally to not join in.

He told her he’d like to take her out for a drink the next week, which is when everything went a bit wobbly.

“So, Vikram, I’d like that, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m not exactly available—”

“Oh, sorry, are you seeing someone?”

“Let me finish my sentence, now. No, I’m not seeing anyone. I’m just not really up for a serious relationship. I’d like to get a drink with you, but I wanted to give you fair warning. I got out of a pretty intense relationship recently, and it’s still a bit complicated.”

His tilted his head, interested, curious. Not put off. “Is he still in the picture?”

“She. She’s. Not, no. We’re definitely not seeing each other anymore. Well, not dating, but I do see her a lot. For work. It makes everything rather complicated.” Sally waited for a comment about her sexuality, but Vikram’s deep breath appeared to be about something else altogether.

“While we’re giving each other fair warning, I should mention that I’m married.”

Sally gaped for a moment, remembering Anderson. God, even the thought of it, almost three years after they’d split up, made her cheeks burn with shame and anger. No more married ones, that rule was hard and fast. “Christ, that’s some cheek on you. I can’t believe I wasted a coffee break on this.” She stood to gather her things from the table.

“Wait, wait,” he said, motioning to her that she should sit back down. “It’s not like you’re thinking: I’m not cheating or anything. We’ve got an open relationship. We both date other people. She even encouraged me to give you a call.”

“Oh that is such a load of bollocks…”

“See?” He waggled his ring finger, complete with a gold wedding band, in her face. How had she not noticed it earlier? “Cheating husbands don’t wear wedding bands on coffee dates.”

Sally paused in her rapid restocking of her purse. That was true enough. She looked at him sharply. “If that’s the case, you should have said earlier.” He bit his lip and nodded ruefully. “Why would she encourage you to call another woman, anyway?”

He smirked. “She’s been seeing a lot of this bloke lately. Which is totally fine, of course, they’re having fun together, and he’s a great guy. But I’m not seeing anyone else right now, which means I’m sort of at loose ends a lot of evenings. I think she’s tired of coming home to me moping about the flat.”

“How is that better than her just cheating on you, if you’re not happy with it?”

“No, I’m happy for her. And it’s not like we don’t spend time together, too. I see more of her than he does. I do get a bit lonely, but if it was just the two of us she’d drive me bloody spare. And vice versa. We’ve tried being exclusive, but it just doesn’t work out for us.”

“Ah.”

“So, better for me to meet someone than for her to ditch the nice boy who’s keeping her in such good spirits.”

“And you think that’s going to be me,” Sally said. Her voice was flat and unimpressed, but she was sitting, stilled, mollified.

“Well, I don’t know, do I? I like you. I’m just letting you know that, you know, I’m available for friendship, I’m available for dates, I’m available for sex—”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“—but I’m not really available for a romantic relationship. I mean, you’re not either, though, right? If you’re still on the rebound from your ex. I don’t mean to be crass, I just thought it’d be good to get it all out on the table before I waste your time, yeah?”

“This is the longest, worst pickup line I’ve ever heard.”

“Drinks Friday, then? Where’s your local?” He waggled his eyebrows and grinned, and Sally couldn’t tell if he was trying to be encouraging or impish. The cheek. She sighed and put some extra drama into it.

“Give me your mobile.” His face crumpled into a parody of confusion. “No, really, give it.” Vikram pulled it from his pocket and passed it over. She opened his recent call log.

“Nat, then? That’s your wife, or a girlfriend?”

“My wife, yeah. Natalia.”

“Pretty name,” she said, dialing. He sat back, apparently impressed.

“ _Vik!_ ”

“No, actually this is DS Sally Donovan, I’m out having a coffee with your husband.”

“ _Oh,_ ” she laughed. A rounded laugh, and deep. “ _You’re the cute cop, aren’t you?_ ”

“I am, yeah.”

“ _And you’re just verifying all the facts, I take it?_ ”

“You’ve got it. Vikram’s asked me out for a drink on Friday at the Mason Arms. Is that going to be a problem with you?”

“ _Perfect, actually. I’m out with Robbie on Friday. I see why he’s after you already, Sally. You’ve got my blessing, but I’ve really got to run, I’ve other calls coming in._ ”

Sally could hear the phone ringing in the background. “Of course. Ta for that then.”

“ _Do tell Vik I’ll be home a bit late tonight, I’ve had to push back a meeting._ ”

Sally passed on the message, and the phone, then sat silently for a moment.

“You’re really not my type, Vik.”

He grinned at her. “Let me guess, it’s the glasses.” Her eyes flew open wide and a startled laugh forced its way out of her. She bit her lip to pinch the laugh off, trying not to eye Vikram’s paunch, his receding hairline, his eye, which she’d realized was slightly lazy. She probably should have been more put off by the whole package. She wasn’t really sure why, in her memories of the day they’d met, she’d found him handsome. He simply wasn’t. But his smile was contagious, and his easy confidence was charming. Even staring his unsuitability in the face she couldn’t make him unappealing.

“Yeah, must be. Let’s check.” She reached over to lift the thin wire frames and gently set them aside. “Yeah, see, that’s much better.”

“Maybe for you, but now I can’t see _your_ face.” They giggled as he replaced the glasses, balancing them once more on his small nose. They’d moved into the realm of companionable, thoughtful silences. It’d be time to make an exit soon. A decision needed to be made.

“I do like you though, really. I’m glad you called.”

“But I’m not your type still, is that it?”

Sally took a deep breath, considering. “You’re not…which doesn’t mean much, I have a lot of types, really, and I haven’t had much luck with anyone who is my type. You’re cute, though.” She paused for a beat. “She’s got a lovely voice, your wife.”

“She’s also straight. Like, totally, 100% straight. This is definitely not a package deal.”

Sally let her head fall back, laughing perhaps more hysterically than the line called for. “Okay, point taken. Yes, I’ll meet you for a drink. Mason Arms at nine on Friday?”

“Meet you there, then. I think I like you, Sally Donovan. You’ve got quite the backbone.”

“Working on it, yeah.”

\--

Three months on, they were still going on dates every week or two. Dinner, a walk, and as much sex as they could pack into an evening. It wasn’t really the kind of relationship Sally wanted, if she was honest with herself. But it was all she wanted from Vik, and she didn’t have any prospects anywhere else, so she’d decided, without ever consciously having made a decision, that it would work well enough for now. And, she added to herself, he’d become a friend of sorts: one of the few people in her life who was totally uninvolved, and safe to talk to.

Curry and beer at the new place around the corner from Sally’s on Monday, a week after the start of the Walters case—Sally was the only one calling it the Walters case, of course, the only one who thought it might be a case at all. Vik had the palak paneer; Sally had butter chicken. They were about to settle the bill when her phone buzzed. She ignored it: they were arguing heatedly over the new Simon Pegg movie in a way that bode very well for the rest of her evening. It buzzed again. She slipped it into her pocket without looking and Vik smiled approvingly. Then it began ringing. On the second round he sighed without malice.

“Go on then, duty calls.”

She rolled her eyes and answered. “What is it now, Greg?”

“Have you seen it yet?”

“You’re interrupting a date, so no, I haven’t. Is this something I can learn about tomorrow?”

“No, it’s something you’re going to learn about now so you don’t kill me for not having told you first. You sitting down?”

“Over a good meal across from a very handsome man, yes. Out with it.” Vik smiled with a bit more than half his face. Sally was still: she knew Greg wasn’t prone to hysterics.

“It’s Sherlock. He’s here.”

“As in. Okay, I actually do not know as in what. What do you mean he’s here?”

“As in here, alive. As in, he faked his own death, and now he’s sleeping on my sofa.”

She set the phone down without hanging up. Vik could obviously see that something was wrong; he leaned over to grip her shoulder gently. _You okay?_ he mouthed silently. She shook her head. Greg was shouting her name. It sounded tinny, his small voice muffled against the cheap red tablecloth. She picked her mobile up once more, fumbling the phone up to her ear. No tantrums, Donovan. “Watson didn’t want him back, then? Bet he didn’t see that one coming.”

“It’s already hit the internet. It’ll be all over the papers by morning. I didn’t want you to wake up to it.”

“Ta. Is he. I don’t even know what to ask, Greg. Will you be in, in the morning?”

“Yeah, course I will.”

“Will he?”

In the background, Sally could hear a great dragging of fabric. Then, that voice she never thought she’d hear again, deep, hoarse, muffled with sleep. “Lestrade, do shut up. Tell Sergeant Donovan I’ll be out of her voluminous hair for another week at least, and let me sleep.”

“You hear that one?”

“Yeah. We’ll talk in the morning, then. Thanks for the call. Better now than on the newsstands, right?”

“Course. You’re sure you’re all right?”

Sally’s face heated. She was feeling hot all over, and she was aware she was sweating through her blouse. “Why wouldn’t I be all right? Tomorrow then.” And she rang off. Sometime during the call Vik had got up to pay the bill. He came back apprehensively.

“Sorry, thought you might want to shove off as soon as you could.”

“Good thinking, yeah.”

“Can I ask what happened?” Her mouth wasn’t working correctly. She shook her head. “Need to get back to yours?” She shook her head again. “Want to go back to mine? Only Nat’s in tonight. She won’t mind, but I don’t know if you want some space and you’re not going to get it there.”

She took in a deep breath, forcing air past the sore ache of her throat. “That’s fine. Nat can be there. I. Yeah, your place. If I can crash over tonight. I can just take the spare, or the couch if you want.”

“No worries, love. Here, up you get.”

He cupped her elbow to direct her up, and steered her out the door, back to his flat.

\--

“Vik, are you— oh, Sally, hi. I didn’t expect the two of you back tonight. Shall I put the kettle on?” Nat was in a light dressing gown, left open to show a white camisole and what appeared to be boxer briefs. Hair mussed like she hadn’t touched it all day. Braless. Sally tried not to look, but Nat’s small, pert nipples, just visible and distorting the line of the fabric, were terribly distracting. Nat shot Sally a withering look, and shook her head silently. Mortifying. And it wasn’t even the first time Nat had caught her out like this, she was a regular creeper now, wasn’t she? Her embarrassment piled atop her furious anxiety and she felt her knees wobbling with the weight of it all.

Vik smiled at her, not having noticed the exchange, and nodded for them both. “Ta, love.” He settled Sally on the couch — god, why was she so shaken? — and went to Nat’s side. “Sorry, I hope I’m not interrupting. Sally’s gotten a call from work.” The two of them moved to the far end of the kitchen where Nat filled the kettle, the water making their conversation unintelligible. The rough paisley fabric of the sofa under Sally’s palms was calming. She stroked it surreptitiously, watching them. The water shut off. “…I’m not sure what, but she’s had some sort of shock and she didn’t want to go back to her place. I hope--”

“It’s all right, it’s no trouble, I was just reading,” Sally looked around the flat, saw the library-bound book laying face-down and open on the awful orange armchair. “…but I can take it upstairs. Yell if you need anything, all right, love?”

“You’re a gem.” Nat gave Sally a searching look and bit her lip. Sally wasn’t sure if she was concerned about Sally’s mental health, about her official status as a creep, or about her being an interloper ruining Nat’s evening in.

“I’ll be up there if you need anything…I’ll clear things off the guest bed too. Take care, Sally.” She walked slowly up the stairs, leaving them alone.

“So,” Vik says, sidling up to her on the sofa. “What was that all about?”

Sally curled up, not quite in the fetal position, but not far from it, picking cat hairs off of her trousers furiously. “You remember Sherlock Holmes.”

“The fake detective, yeah. I remember you and he didn’t get on. You helped turn him in, right before he killed himself, you said.”

“That’s the one. He’s not dead. He’s on Lestrade’s couch.”

Vikram pulled back to stare at her, opened his mouth, closed it again, repeated the motion a few times. He couldn’t believe it yet, probably. Wanted to argue, but knew it was past arguing. Moved through all the stages and reached acceptance in a matter of seconds; that was the luxury of never actually having known the tosser. “Not dead. Wow. Well. And with Lestrade. Who must be…investigating him for fraud, then? From his couch?”

Sally shook her head. “Doesn’t sound like it. Which. Fuck, I don’t even know what to make of it.”

Vik’s sympathy-face flickered on. “Oh, no, love, don’t even think about it. You can’t blame yourself for —”

Her pulse jumped. “Who the bloody hell thinks I’m blaming myself? Jesus Vik, what, do you think I’m guilty of something now? I did my _job_ , like anyone would, like anyone _should_ have if they weren’t so blinded by that freak and his fucking bag of tricks. Christ, now _I’m_ the one who's guilty, am I?” She took a breath and realized Vik’s face had flattened out. Shit, she’d managed to scare him. “Oh. Oh, bollocks. I…Vik, it’s just.”

“Got it. Yeah.” He stood up, took a step back, holding his hands out like you would to a snarling dog. “I wasn’t blaming you for anything, you know that. And I do know you’re good at your job. So let’s just cool it for a second. Do you need some space? Nat’s got you some tea, I think she left it…” He leaned around the corner to check the kitchen counter. “Yeah, I’ll grab it.” He did, and passed the mug (chipped, blue, unrecognizable orange logo flaking off of its side) over the back of the couch, looking down on her, equal parts reprimanding and concerned. “So, space, or talking. Only I don’t want to sit here while you lob false accusations at me all evening.”

“Space, then. No offense. You know how I get when I’m angry.” She took a sip of the tea, which was still too hot and burned her tongue. Which she deserved. “I can make it home, actually. I shouldn’t have barged in like this. Nat’s probably furious with me.”

“Maybe. But you should stay. You’ve had a shock, and I’m not thrilled that you’re getting confrontational about it, but I’m not going to kick you out. Go kip in the guest room and we can talk in the morning. There’s a robe on the back of the door, I think.” Sally nodded dumbly, and reached over the back of the sofa to squeeze his hand. She stood, and he perched himself on the edge of the sofa’s arm to receive her hug, and damn him, he was too decent to be unresponsive. “If there’s fallout, you can handle it. And I can help if you’ll let me.” Her eyes stung, but she wasn’t crying. She took a jagged breath and nodded again, then disappeared as best she could into the bathroom. Brushed teeth (her toothbrush was in the medicine cabinet, not in the cup on the sink, but at least she had one here), peed, stared at her face in mirror for a minute or two. Pressed at the hollows under eyes, licked trembling, cracked lips, tried not to cry at the pathetic wreck of her face, puffy like she’d been sobbing out there, though she definitely hadn’t been. She darted across the hall, then stopped at the door to the guest bed. “Vik?” She could hear him washing dishes in the kitchen. The tap shut off and there he was in front of her. “Thanks.” He smiled at her, sad and affectionate.

“Tomorrow, we can talk if you need to. Get rest. Need a wake-up call?”

“Got my alarm on my phone, and the battery should make it long enough. I’ll be out the door by 7:00.”

“You can stay as long as you need, Sally, you know that. Good night.” He kissed her softly, and she responded in a flush of heat, like she’d just remembered her body existed. He pulled back, breathed, kissed her again, a wet press of lips and stubble, mouth firmly closed once more. “Tomorrow. Best not push your luck with Nat tonight, okay?”

Sally ducked, shame-faced. “Night then.” She slipped into the darkened room and shut the door.

\--

She was good at her job. She was, she was, she was. She worked harder than any of them for half the credit. She was insightful and she was supportive and she never let go of a lead once she'd found it. She was good.

It was dark in the Appulingams’ guest room, only the thinnest edges of grey light glowing around the heavy curtains. She knew they were red, the drapes. Remembered staring at them in a haze of lassitude while Vik showered up after a quick fuck a few weeks back. They only ever came back here together if Nat was out, which was fine by Sally. She liked Nat; liked her a lot, actually, when she wasn’t busy being distracted by her miraculous tits. And she knew there wasn't supposed to be any jealousy between them. Everything was out in the open. But she felt it, now, in the dark, thinking of Vik curled up around Nat in the other room, though which of them she was jealous of she couldn’t quite say. Of them both, really: of the stability of their relationship, where she had non. If she was very quiet under the covers, Sally could hear them talking softly across the hall. Not enough to understand the words, just to know that they were awake and apparently had things to discuss. Herself, almost certainly. That had been regrettable. Regretted. She should have just gone home. She'd have been fine,of course.

Of all the things. The return of the Freak. It was a shock - it WAS a shock - but he was still so alive in her imagination. In the public imagination, really. It didn't take much to convince her. He hardly needed to butt in on the phone for her to believe Lestrade. If anyone could come back from the dead to antagonize her it would be Sherlock Holmes. The fraud. Because he was still a fraud, as far as she was concerned. Now he'd just faked one more thing. Watson was probably slobbering in his lap again already, or would be soon enough. No, she just had to stay firm. She knew the story backwards and forwards. It had been three years and she hadn't forgotten a second of it. It had been like being Holmes himself, working it all out like that. Or rather, like the person Holmes had pretended to be. All the pictures slotted together so neatly in her head to tell a story. The story. It was like her nerve endings were burning, oversensitised, when she realized the enormity of what she had to tell Lestrade.

And no, she hadn't liked Holmes. Everyone knew that, that he was an irritant, a prat, and needed to be taken down a peg. But she'd thought, at least for a time, that he made up for some of his awful behavior by being right. By being brilliant. She knew about having to double your efforts just to be taken seriously. She knew about being an overachiever, a show-off, about struggling to make anyone see you at all. So to understand, finally, that it was all put on — that he'd earned even her own grudging respect, not by being a genius, but by being a liar and a criminal — it was a personal insult. She wasn't happy to know the truth, but once she'd learned it, she was delighted to take him down. She had never thought he’d have killed himself. It was good, then, that she hadn't for a moment let herself feel responsible, seeing as how he'd never died at all.

She didn't expect she'd ever hear an apology from Watson. She'd only seen him the once, since. Neither of them had been at Holmes's funeral. But a week later Watson had shown up at the Yard to collect some of Holmes's things from Lestrade’s office. Sally had known already that he was a scary little shit. She'd heard him, the second time they’d met, joking with Holmes about the man he'd just murdered. Laughing like it'd been nothing at all. The two of them had been too starry-eyed over each other to even know she was standing right there. She'd talked to Lestrade, of course, and she'd been naive enough to assume Watson would be taken in. But Lestrade was just as smitten as Watson had been with Holmes and his lies: he dismissed the accusation. Lack of evidence. Not that he'd done more than a cursory search for anything of the kind. So yeah, Sally knew what Watson was capable of, and she knew he’d never believe Holmes was anything other than a bloody romantic hero. She could have been scared, but she wasn't. She never did scare easily. But her hackles were up, and when the two of them collided there was an explosive reaction, one she could hardly remember without feeling flush all over, angry tears heating in her eyes. It wasn't her fault Watson had never made a declaration to Holmes before the arsehole offed himself. And it was a shame, for Watson at least. A bloody tragedy. But not hers. She was good.

The heat of Sally’s anger left her flushed between the thin, sticking sheets. It was enough like arousal that she groaned with it, writhed slowly, until it became arousal at last. She’d gone to bed in her knickers, but she’d never been able to sleep clothed, so she wriggled under the covers to strip them off and toss them to the floor. The drag of the cool, rough sheets on her hot skin was delicious, and she had the brief sensation of her rage turning into relief, as she left her mind and entered her body. She rolled onto her belly, onto her hand, cupped herself and rocked, pleading quietly into her other fist, until the visions of Holmes's arrogance, Watson's grief, Lestrade's paternalism, whited out behind her eyelids. In the space of a moment, she was wet and aching, and, trying to keep quiet so as not to bother Nat, she slipped two fingers into herself, angling her wrist awkwardly so that she could work her clit at the same time. Just before coming, she had an unwelcome flashback to the previous year, of straddling Molly’s waist, fucking herself on Molly’s fingers, hearing Molly’s gentle, soft words of encouragement; the memory set her clenching, gasping and moaning quietly, tears bleeding out of the corners of her eyes, shuddering herself into a restless sleep.

\--

It was good, in the end, that she’d stayed at Vik and Nat’s. Had she gone back to her own flat, Lestrade’s call would have come while she was already on the way in to work, headed in the wrong direction. As it was, she’d just walked into her flat to change, keys still stuck in the lock, halfway out of last night’s skirt, hobbling through her kitchen as she shimmied it down her legs to the floor.

“You’re not heading down already, are you?”

“Not quite? I’m halfway out the door.” Sally began popping the buttons of her shirt, leaning her elbow on the back of the armchair while she pushed her knickers down awkwardly, trying her best not to sound out of breath.

“Looks like you’re staying in Brent for a bit. There’s a scene in Willesden. Forensics is there already.”

“Anderson?” She kept her fingers resolutely uncrossed. She could deal with it, she just didn’t want to.

“Play nicely,” Lestrade admonished her. “And we’ll need to talk about Holmes on the way back to the Yard.”

“He won’t be there?”

“He’s keeping a low profile.”

Sally had to laugh at that. She’d passed a newsstand on the way up the block, and his face was on the cover of every last rag. It was an old picture, the one they were using, from a press conference, looking dour as ever. Watson was an adoring smudge in the background. “Text me the address. I’m leaving right now.” As if to prove her point, she shucked her vest, letting it dangle from her mobile-hand so she wouldn’t have to disengage the phone from her ear until Lestrade rang off. She scooped the lot, skirt, knickers, shirt, vest, mobile, onto the uncomfortably boxy Ikea couch she never sat on. It was already strewn with clothing from the last time she’d come through in a rush. She’d been home so little in the past month she’d hardly noticed the accumulation.

\--

The first clue was the circle of girls: the same ones who had hovered around the Walters’ flat at the last crime scene, sitting on the low redbrick wall in front of the building, leaning on each other, black streaks under their eyes to show who was the most devastated. Sally shook her head, regretted her cynicism: they were properly crying. It wasn’t a performance like you see sometimes. She was forcefully reminded of Holmes shamming tears in front of a suspect. He was never quite as good as he’d seemed to think he was, though poor Molly had fallen for it every time. These girls would have caught him out in a second. Sally looked them over once more before she moved closer. In the space between two quiet steps came the realization that Annie wasn’t with them. That the girl, from behind, who could have been her, was too tall, older, thinner on inspection. A sister, a cousin, a grieving relative. Fuck.

Sally’s heels (higher than they needed to be, but she wanted an extra inch today, comfort be damned) scraped gracelessly on the pavement. The girls looked up in unison, dead-eyed. Sally had the unfortunate impression of being watched silently by a herd of cattle as she passed, but she forced the thought down. Lestrade was in the house, just inside the doorway, conferring with Zhao, Anderson’s new assistant.

“Donovan. Just in time. Anderson’s just shoved off.”

“It’s Annie, isn’t it?” The foyer was crowded enough without Sally in it, but she was reluctant to move in to look at the scene.

“Annie Clark, yeah. Friend of Keisha Walters; did you interview her last week?”

“I did. And I was also…I knew both girls from before. From CAIT, about seven years ago. This. How did Annie die?”

“Hanged, same as Walters.”

“You know I thought…these can’t be suicides, Lestrade.”

“Serial suicides again, then? Come on, this isn’t ‘A Study in Pink’ and you know it. Her best friend just killed herself a week ago, Donovan. And you just told me she’s got a history of abuse. Investigate this as far as you think it needs to go, but it doesn’t make a pattern. We’ll look into the family situations too, though. And make sure we get some caseworkers to talk to the girls out front. I genuinely do not believe this is anything but two related suicides, but even so those girls are going to need some help.”

Sally took a deep breath through her nose, smelled curry and stale grease and cat dander, rancid odors embedded in the grimy carpet beneath her. “What do you need from me?”

“Get on the line with CAIT. You’ll want to look through those records. Checks on all the members of the household. And you can arrange for a caseworker to come by this afternoon for the other girls.” He paused, checked his buzzing pocket and turned away, phone to his ear. Some row on the other end, tinny violent shouting. Sally could make an educated guess at that one. Lestrade muttered something sharp and unintelligible before ringing off.

“Holmes destroying things already?”

“Watson’s sanity. And my coffee table, sounds like. Ah. Yeah, we haven’t talked about that, have we? Sorry for last night, I just—”

“No, you did the right thing.” She was quiet for a moment, led them outside where the air was getting warm already, but at least it was breathable. “So, when am I going to bump into himself next?”

“Ah. Not sure. He…I’m not sure if he’s interested in coming back, actually. And Gregson would have to actually certify him as a consultant this time around, so there’s a lot needs to be done before I ask him for help on difficult cases. Not that we have any on right now.” Sally thought of Keisha on the slab, wrong in some fundamental way beyond the fact of her death. “He’s just staying at mine as…well, as a friend, I suppose. He hadn’t counted on John moving out of Baker Street. I mean, the landlady’s getting it ready for him again, but it’ll be another day or two before he can move back in. And now he’s persuading John to move in with him again.”

“And by persuading you must mean belittling his wife until he leaves her, right?”

“Sounds like, yeah. Poor bastard.”

“Oh, John can take it. And if he can’t he can tell Holmes to stuff it: he’s been getting on well enough without that lying arse all this time.”

“I meant Sherlock, Sally. The twit didn’t seem to think John would ever move on, and I don’t think he knows what to do with himself now it’s happened. He’s been moping on my couch for a week now.” Lestrade’s eyes didn’t move from Sally’s. He had lovely eyes, warm and brown and always rather sad. “He lied about his death, Sally. But you need to understand that he wasn’t lying about anything else. And the suicide…he did it to protect people. Myself included. It was a shitty, awful, selfless thing that he did, and I still can’t quite believe he was capable of it. But his name’s going to be cleared. Officially.”

Lestrade knew. Of course he knew what he was saying. What that made her. She was suddenly unable to deal with his apparently boundless compassion. “What?” she snapped. “I don’t need your concern, Lestrade. Or are you just trying to decide how to start needling for an apology?”

“Sally, I’m not expecting—”

“That’s crap, Greg. Utter crap, and you know it. If you’ve decided to side with him, I know where I stand here.”

“There aren’t sides, Sally. You’re not bad at your job—”

“—I’m _brilliant_ at my job.”

“—and you misjudged things.”

“Excuse me? I. I misjudged. Bollocks to this.” She began to storm off, thought better of it, and spun back around. “I’m heading in to get the files, Inspector. I’ll have caseworkers over here by the afternoon and background checks on…bloody hell, who lives here?”

Greg unclenched his jaw audibly. “I’ll have Allan forward the names to you. Take the day to cool down a bit, yeah? It’s hard, I know, but I can’t have these kinds of hysterics all over my crime scenes.”

“Did I hear something about hysterics?” Bloody Anderson, sneaking up behind her. “Oh, hello Sally. That time of the month, is it?”

“Anderson!” Lestrade said, barking without even bothering to turn to the prick. “You’re done here. Get off of my crime scene.”

“Righto. Zhao’s getting the stiff off to Bart’s. I’ll be back at the lab.”

Sally couldn’t even bring herself to speak, she was so angry at the both of them. The detonation was going to happen, but not now: she couldn’t let it be now, not while she had to prove her rationality. She nodded, as though in response to a question, and stepped out to the road.

In her office, she flipped down the blinds and buried her face in her arms with the lights off until her breathing slowed. And then she got to work.

—

Vik called at half three. She didn’t answer her mobile, but just a moment later her office phone was ringing. Sally hated, _hated_ , spillover from her personal life into her professional life, especially after the mess with Anderson. She gritted her teeth and picked up. “Donovan.”

“Just checking in, pet.”

“Christ, Vik, you can’t call my work line.”

“Well, you don’t answer your mobile.”

“I’ll call you back.” She gave herself another moment to cool down, staring at the cool freckled grey of her desk, then rang him back. “Right then. Hi. Sorry about that. What’s up?”

“We didn’t get a chance to talk this morning, you rushed out so fast. You know you don’t have to do that, right? Nat doesn’t mind you being there; she was worried about you too.”

“Well. That’s kind of her. I. I had to get to work though. And I do feel a bit jealous of her when I’m there, I think. I know…I know I don’t have to. It’s not like that. And I’m not, not usually. But when it’s the three of us, I can’t do it for long. I like Nat, but I’d rather see you when it’s just the two of us.”

“No, that makes sense, love. And she feels the same way. It’s not like we’ve mastered jealousy or anything. I get jealous too sometimes. We just acknowledge that it’s there, and that it doesn’t have to mean anything.” Sally rolled her eyes and pantomimed her boredom at the relationship analysis for her empty office. “And if we can stay out of situations that make us all feel that way, it’s something to work toward, but I know sometimes it can’t be helped. Anyway, that’s why I’m calling: do you want me to come over tonight? Nat offered, so she and I will just get out together tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to change your plans for me.”

“Well, but I want to.” He paused, made his voice stern. “Sometimes I think you have a hard time understanding that I do actually care about you.”

“Okay. Yeah, I get it. Just. Let’s just go to my place. I don’t want to go out tonight. Can you be there around eight-ish?”

“Sure. Course I can. Are you going to hold up all right until then?”

“As long as no one else tries to speak to me.”

\--

At hers that night, they fucked first. Vik didn’t need much persuading, which was a relief. She rode him on the sofa, atop the discarded pile of clothes, hands round his neck (not squeezing, she was smarter than that, even when angry), directing his hands in a low voice until she’d come two times to his one. She slid from his lap to let him take care of the condom, and sighed at him loudly when he tossed it into the bin by the recliner, not even bothering to wrap it up or tie it off, the slob. He smirked at her, flopping back down on the sofa. Sally was still just as tense as she’d been when they’d started, and now exhausted as well. She gripped the hair at the nape of his neck, leading him into a kiss, letting her irritation bleed into needy fondness, and when he responded, biting at her lips and running his wide palms over her breasts, she pushed his head down and had him lap and suck at her clit until she was shaking and shouting and finally still.

Only then, once they’d gathered up their limbs and migrated to her bed, did they talk. Sally reclined against the headboard, and Vik tucked his body against hers, laying his head softly on her stomach. She’d told him about Holmes before, but now she gave him the full story. How he’d flirted with her at first, to get at case files Lestrade wouldn’t give up while he was still using. She’d seen, later, how he was with Molly. On his part it was the same ploy: flirt, retreat, insult, repeat. And clearly Molly’s response was the desired one. For months she was in a constant state of frustration, humiliation and awe: she’d have let him get away with murder. Even after she’d gotten over her ridiculous crush, he was still able to manipulate her with a calculated kind word. Sally’s own reaction to his hot-and-cold routine was rather different.

She’d pounced, once, five years ago. He’d found her at a pub by the station after she’d gone off the clock, bought her a drink and started in on his usual gambit, making suggestive innuendo while caressing the glass he never took a sip out of. She’d decided then to see what he was really made of, dragged him to the toilets and pushed him up against the wall. But his mouth was slack and unwilling against hers, his cock soft and small against her waist where she shoved against him.

“Didn’t think so,” she’d said, staring him down stonily. She’d felt like a praying mantis, ready to devour that manipulative head of his in an instant. “You’re not getting anything from me, and I’m not getting anything from you. It’s best we’re both clear on that.” And he’d had the decency to look cowed, in the moment, which was a small satisfaction until she realized she’d just earned herself a lifetime of sexual humiliation by the world’s most observant wanker. She’d been glad, honestly glad, while she and Molly were together, that he was dead. Sally could handle some bad-natured ribbing, though she never stopped hating it. Molly would have been absolutely mortified, and the thought of her listening to his deductions about their sex life made Sally want to kill him all over again.

Vik rolled onto his back and was silent for a while. Before, Sally would have taken this as a request to keep going, to add more anecdotes until the picture was complete. But over the last few months she’d developed a knack for recognizing when Vik had taken his fill of information and needed time to craft a response. It was her favorite thing about him, that and his gleeful submissiveness in bed. He didn’t just listen, he contributed: made every story into a mutual transaction.

“There’s something I want you to consider. No. That is, there’s something I think you’ve already considered, but you’re avoiding it.”

“Go on.”

“That you may have been wrong about him. Not about him being a wanker, he absolutely sounds like a wanker. About him being a fraud, though.”

“No. No, he was. There’s no way…”

“I know. I know there’s no way. But. Here’s the thing. So, Watson, I haven’t met, but everything I’ve heard from you makes me think he’s a bit deluded, so I don’t expect he’d believe even the most damning evidence of fraud on Holmes’s part. But Lestrade…”

“You’ve only met him the once.”

“Twice, if you count when we met.”

“I don’t.”

“Maybe you should; he knew I’d be useless as a witness before I even opened my mouth. So, from the times I’ve met him, and from everything you’ve ever said about him — which is a lot, by the way — he’s an excellent judge of character, and he takes his job very, very seriously. I know even he could have been taken in by Holmes if he’d been faking it all that time. You’re right there. But he wouldn’t ever trust him enough again to let the man stay in his home after returning from…from being dead. Not if he didn’t have absolute proof that Holmes had been set up. Right?” Sally’s silence was as long-suffering as a sigh. “But, really, that’s not the part I feel like I have to convince you of.”

“Isn’t it? Because I’m definitely not convinced of that.”

“Yes you are, and you know it. What I’m trying to tell you without pissing you off completely is that it’s not your fault. And that the part you played in the whole thing, the choices you made…you had good reasons for them, even if they had the worst possible consequences.”

“You don’t get to tell me how I feel about this, Vik.” She quickly amended her earlier thought about his excellent listening skills. “And you don’t know the first thing about ‘the part I played,’ whatever the hell that means.” Sally was breathing harder, forcefully, even, beginning to scratch her nails quietly at on the sheets. This was Vik. In bed, next to her, naked and pliant and being sort of a dick, but he wasn’t usually; he was usually right. She needed to calm down, and fast, before she took it out on him, this one time when he was so utterly wrong.

“Yeah.” He knew, she could tell he knew, how close he was to getting himself booted from the flat right now. “Your part in setting him up. You didn’t do it. No one was responsible, not directly. No one but Moriarty. But you did play a part in setting him up. You’ve said as much yourself.”

“And you just said that I wasn’t responsible. Because I wasn’t. I know that.”

“But I also know you didn’t like him, and you had suspicions, and you were led to voice those suspicions and take him down. And they did take him down. And…just. Let me say this. I really think you need to acknowledge that you regret it, and forgive yourself for that. I mean, christ, half the people at the Met are as culpable as you, I bet. But you’ve been denying it, on your part, and you’ve hated him for so long…now he’s back I can understand exactly why it’s hitting you so hard.”

“You should have your own program.”

“Hm?”

“On the telly.”

“Don’t, pet.” He rolled onto his back and scooted up to sit next to her, shoulders to the wall like he was preparing for his own execution. “I know I’m butting in. But you need some help here.”

“Help feeling guilty for something that wasn’t my fault? Are you sure that’s actually what I need?”

“Yeah, maybe. You’ve got to let yourself feel it if you’re ever going to move past it. You look like you’re falling apart, Sally. I could be a colossal tit and just let it happen and enjoy the angry sex while you’re still interested in me, but I care about you too much to do that.”

Sally immediately thought of Nat. She’d be at home now, grinding coffee for the morning, coffee she didn’t drink. She always knew Vik was coming home to her. “To a degree,” she allowed.

“Do you think I don’t?”

She rolled over to straddle him. They were clammy and sticky and she forced herself to look him in the eyes. She couldn’t lie to him. “I think you do. And I don’t understand how that works, for you. It’s not like how it works for me, I can tell you that much. I don’t understand how you divide it up. It’s hard to feel like I’ve only got half of your attention.”

“Whoa, wait. Is this something we need to talk about? I thought we were on the same page here.”

“Maybe. I mean, I always think we are, until. Until it feels like things are more serious than they are. And I know they’re not. And this sort of conversation. This is the sort of conversation I’d have a hard time having with someone I was in a real relationship with. Coming from you, I mean, you’re not invested. We’re not that kind of coup—not a couple at all.”

Vik was still beneath her, his soft stomach giving under her weight. She was pleased, suddenly, by the sight of the black hair traversing south of his navel, merging with the black of her bush where she sat on him. The contrasts and gradations between the colors of their skin where they were pressed together. He couldn’t possibly be comfortable like this. He didn’t let on that he was bothered in the slightest, staring at her intently, processing again. Formulating an argument this time, she thought. “You’re going through a lot right now. I can see why that might put things in a new light. Between us, I mean. So. Are there things you’re not getting from me? Things you need to get elsewhere?”

“No!” Too quick.

Another searching look. “That…obviously it’s not a problem if you do. Want someone else. I mean, clearly. But. I meant, more than another person. Is there something that you need; something that’s missing?”

“Nothing I can get.”

“Come on, speak up.”

“Look, I want someone I can count on to stick around. Like, I want to know they’ll be there in the morning. And you can’t be that. I know you can’t be that, and honestly I don’t even know if I’d want you to be that for me, because you’re sort of acting like an arrogant prick who thinks he knows everything about me right now and it’s pissing me off. But knowing you’re giving that…that focus, to Nat while I’ve no one. And I do actually want someone to give me difficult advice, someone who knows me, and doesn’t just assume they do. It’s fine most days, and then something bloody awful happens, and. And yeah, it’s no good. And here you are giving me this shitty advice anyway when you should just be a casual fuck who doesn’t know the first thing about my day. Like, we’ve skipped over a pretty critical step here if you’re going to act like my boyfriend.”

Vik was utterly quiet. Then he laughed, and there may have been a trace of bitterness in it. “I’m not blowing off this conversation, honestly, but.” He cleared his throat with another half-formed laugh. “The other thing I wanted to ask you is what the deal is with Molly right now.” She’d told him, of course, about Molly. Molly, who had been sweet and loving, and, on the good days, insinuated herself into Sally’s life so seamlessly it was like she’d always been there. Who could never understand Sally’s anger, much less quell it, and who always seemed to be on the verge of apologizing for the entire world, for every person who had ever done Sally wrong. Who finally left, and did apologize, then, with a look on her face as though she were aware (though she couldn’t have been aware) of the pain she was leaving in her wake. Sally shifted her weight back and rolled herself off of Vik’s roughly furred legs, sitting next to his knees, not touching him.

“Why would there be a deal with Molly? Are you saying. You think I’m trying to replace her with you, or something. No. I mean, yeah, that’d be lovely, but you’re not her, and you couldn’t be, even if you wanted to be.”

“No. Well, I do wonder that. But I ask because...they were friends, right? She and Holmes?”

“Sort of.”

“And he faked his death.”

“Where. Where are you going with this.” She knew exactly where he was going, could see the folder marked S. Holmes on Molly’s desk so clearly it could have been lying on the bed beside them.

“Well. Someone had to help him, didn’t they? Death certificates don’t forge themselves, or whatever. I mean, the body had to have been examined. That’s not the sort of thing that can be blamed on a happy coincidence, is it? So. I mean, did he have any other friends working in the morgue? Because it doesn’t sound like he had many friends at all, and I’d bet good money that he had Molly help him pull it off. So. I mean, she must have known, mustn’t she have?” Sally’s mind had blanked in horror. He was still speaking. “I think you do want me to replace her, and you’re right that I can’t. I do have Nat, and I don’t have the room in my life for two relationships like that. But I also haven’t spent three years stringing you along with a such a terrible fucking lie, one that you’ve clearly been suffering for. So, yeah, think on that, because maybe Molly shouldn’t be your benchmark for a successful bloody relationship, yeah?” He was angry now, his cheeks and chest flushed. He was still sitting next to her, but had hunched forward, as though to amplify his voice even further. It was, Sally realized, the first time in their three months together that they’d spoken angrily to each other, with actual contempt.

“I need you to go.”

He bit at his lip, breath puffing out of his nose. She thought of a cartoon bull, stamping his feet, and if she could have felt anything at the moment she’d have laughed. “Fine.”

“I’m not mad at you. I just need to be alone.”

“All right. Be alone. I should take a few days to cool down myself.”

“Wait, why are you mad, anyway?”

“Because I do fucking care about you, Sally, and…I don’t know, I feel angry for you. And you’re not even angry yourself, all of a sudden, and I suppose that pisses me off a bit. Also you’re too fucking stubborn and I think it might kill you to actually take accountability for a mistake once in your life, and that’s bloody infuriating. Look, I’ll call you before the weekend. And if you need me, just. Yeah, call. Text. Talk to me.” He hopped out of bed, with that agility that always caught her off guard. Slipped into his pants and jeans and shirt in under a minute, and put both his big hands around her face, fierce and ungentle. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and left.

Sally had collected herself a bit by the next morning, when she got a call on her office line from the social worker assigned to Annie Clark’s sister: she had a family emergency, and was rescheduling her appointment with Sheila, wouldn’t see her for another few days. Sally, suddenly less collected, hissed into her phone at the woman for a few minutes, and rang off after telling her she’d go out to see the girl herself. She pulled out the file: Sheila Clark, 17, elder of two (now one). Lived at home with her mum and (no longer) sister. No job, and school was out, so she’d likely be at the flat. There was no listed number for Sheila, so Sally called the land line in Annie’s file. A tired voice answered: clearly the mother:

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Clark, this is DS Sally Donovan. I’m trying to get a hold of your daughter Sheila.”

“What do you want with her? The shock she’s had, she don’t need more trouble.”

“No trouble, ma’am. She had an appointment with a social worker this morning who’s had to reschedule her appointment. I’d like to come by, though, and check in on her, to make sure she’s not in need of any additional services.”

“She’s not.”

“Not in?”

“Not needing services. She’s always the soldier, Sheila. Thank you for calling, Mrs. Donovan.”

“I’d still like to spea—” but she’d rung off already. “Shit.” Sally drummed her fingers on the table. She was getting twitchy just sitting around her office anyway. Best to just head out there in case the girl did need help.

The heat had finally broken and it was raining again when she pulled up in the squad car to the Clarks’ flat. A group of boys down the way playing football jeered at her as she walked up the sidewalk. She was suddenly anxious about intruding, and wasn’t sure exactly why she’d felt the need to make the visit herself; the girl was probably fine, just like her mother had said. Right before she pushed the buzzer, Sally looked into the small yard and saw Sheila sitting on the brick dividing wall reading a paperback. Sheila had Annie’s enormous cascade of brown hair, but she’d managed to tame it into spiral curls, wilder than Sally’s and gorgeous. Sally stopped herself before approaching the girl, reminding herself not to project onto her, not to assume they had anything in common. She’d always been awful at this, interviewing the bereaved, but she felt moved to make things better here.

Sheila looked up at her approach and frowned. “You’re the cop.”

“One of them, yeah.”

“My mum know you’re here?”

“No, I didn’t knock. I’m here for you, actually. Do you have a minute?” Sheila sighed and nodded in the reluctant way of every teenager ever. Her eyes, though, were red-rimmed, and when she put down her book, her fingers trembled. Sally joined her on the low wall. All the buildings around here were the same, and she was forcefully reminded of her mum’s flat, where she hadn’t been in months. Of walking her to the door from the car last year, helping her into the house after another round of radiation. Of her sister Tasha waiting for them in the sitting room, shooing Sally out as soon as she arrived, sending her back to Molly’s flat where she could cry in the loo before Molly got back from her shift. “I’m DS Sally Donovan. I saw you here on Tuesday but I didn’t get a chance to talk to you then.”

“I remember you.”

“I called in a social worker to come speak with you. She told me this morning that she needed to reschedule with you for later in the week—”

“Yeah, I know, she called me already. But I don’t need to talk to her anyway.”

“It’s never a bad idea, Sheila—”

“Actually, yeah, it is. I don’t know why you all keep bothering us. It’s bad enough as it is without you poking at it.”

Sally was regretting this trip more and more by the minute. “Look, I understand. Everyone’s just concerned for you, is all. It’s a hard thing, one of the hardest things you could go through. I’m an older sister myself. My little sister—”

“Yeah?” Sheila snapped, feigning interest. “Is she dead, then?”

“No. No, but I’ve been in situations where I felt responsible for things that happened to her, so I know—”

“What? You know what it’s like to keep her safe? Well fuck, that must be just awful for you, it must be so difficult for you to know that you’ve done your bloody job. What are you trying to say about me, anyway? I did the best I could, and I still fucked it up, and that’s life, innit?”

Sally stilled, her brain pinging to life. Something was wrong here. She had a moment’s recollection of herself, at 18, in her mother’s bedroom, sitting alone on the bed, hearing her mother in the next room screaming accusations at her little sister. The terrible, crushing guilt. The self-righteous anger, already building, fueled by the knowledge that she’d be the guilty one now, the one who couldn’t keep her mouth shut. There was something Sheila hadn’t told anyone yet.

“Sheila. I need to know what you knew about Annie. What was going on in her head, to make her think this was the only way out.”

“She was crazy, all right?” Sheila’s voice was shaking. Sally guessed she had less than five minutes before the girl shut down on her entirely.

“She may have been depressed, yeah. And when people are really deeply depressed they may not be able to see any other options. But was there something else? Was there something that could have triggered that, or made it worse?”

“Look, just the usual. Y’know, everyone has problems; you can’t protect everyone from every bloody thing in the world. You’ve just got to be tough enough to move past it, and she wasn’t.” Sheila’s eyes were wild, red and wet with tears. “It wasn’t my fault!”

“I know, of course it wasn’t.” God she was crap at being maternal, but she knew, knew that feeling. And knew she was on the right track. “And it sounds like you’ve had to be pretty tough too, right? That’s why we want you to have someone to talk to. I know it feels like everyone has to work this hard to keep going, but it doesn’t have to be this way.” Sally reached for Sheila’s shoulder instinctively, and Sheila jerked away, nearly feral now.

“Don’t you fucking touch me, dyke.” She stood up and backed away, never letting Sally’s hands out of her sight. “I’m not saying shit to anyone, hear?”

Sally watched her go, not riled by the word so much as the memory of her sister using it, to their mother no less, when explaining why Sally could help drive her to appointments but would need to find another bed to sleep in. This after she’d given up her own flat to nurse their mother while she wasn’t working. And then, inexplicably, she was reminded of the shelter of Molly’s arms. The warm feeling of absolute invincibility. Of protection. Her mother, her sister, she’d thought then, could call her what they liked. It was worth it, to see Molly’s slack, sleeping face on the pillow next to hers. To have the freedom to wake her slowly, with her hands and her mouth. To have the power to reduce her lover to incoherent moans, and exhausted, breathless smiles, every morning forever. Which was, as it turned out, a stupid, self-important thought. That she could take care of anyone so well that they’d stay forever. With Molly gone, her mother and sister welcomed her back, occasionally. Stood waiting on her doorstep to be invited in for tea and gossip, visibly relieved by the evidence of her solitude. Hoping it would last.

\--

On Friday, Sally called Vik. He’d made plans with Nat for both that evening and Saturday, and was going to be traveling for work Sunday evening. They planned out a breakfast date Sunday, and Sally felt pretty good about the fact that she genuinely didn’t feel jealous about his other plans. She wanted him happy, and she wasn’t making him happy. It helped that she’d spent the last several days thinking about Molly. The morning after her row with Vik, she’d texted her.

_Did you help him do it?_

Almost a full day later (she never missed a text, not when they were together, not even after she’d left), a reply:

_Let’s meet up. Coffee Sunday?_

So that was her answer, then. It felt nice, the ache in her chest when she didn’t respond until Friday,

_Got a breakfast date, sorry. Another time, maybe._

There was no response to that. It was as though Holmes’s return had put a continent between them, delaying the post, making them think long and hard on each missive, searching for overlooked subtext.

\--

Breakfast with Vik was a bit of a letdown. It quickly moved from a quiet breakfast to what should have been a quickie at her flat. The nice thing about him, one of the nice things, was his libido’s admirable constancy. But he seemed absent, while she was busy snogging him on the sofa, and from there it dissolved into a Talk. He wanted to take a short break. Not for good. “I do still want to see you,” he’d told her, stroking her head. “But I can tell this is getting complicated. You’ve got a lot to work out right now, and I’m not going to get in the way of that. Talk to Molly, figure out what the hell is going on with Holmes, and we’ll see where things stand.” Sally felt she was justified in feeling a bit suspicious about it all. She asked straight out if he was breaking things off because of their fight that week. He denied it. She asked if this had to do with Nat. An even more vehement denial. But something else was up, for certain.

“Is there something else I’m not getting, here? Because I don’t see how us still being friends and not having sex is going to make things any less complicated for you. I know the sex isn’t the complicated bit, now is it? I’m not arguing with you, if you want to stop we’ll stop. I’m just sort of confused about what’s going on.”

“Well, it is complicated, actually. The sex bit. I mean, you can’t just divorce it from everything else going on in your life. I keep feeling like you’re trying to work out all of your…anger and guilt and whatever by fucking my brains out. Which, you know, works out pretty well for me, but it doesn’t seem to be doing you any good. And the Molly thing is…it is really something you need to figure out. Something you’ve needed to figure out for a while, honestly. I know you weren’t really over her when we started up. But you still aren’t, and now there’s this whole thing that you’re not addressing with her. And I just feel like you don’t really know where you stand with her, so you’re just avoiding her by shagging me. Which is not what I want to be here for, all right?”

“Vik?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you realize how much I hate it when you try to explain my feelings to me?”

“Um.”

“Because they are, in fact, _my own feelings_. I get it, you’re very emotionally aware, and I do like that about you, but you can seriously piss off now. You’re not my therapist, and you’re not in my head. Nor are you _welcome_ in my head, Jesus, it’s not like I invited you in there.”

“Ah. Got it.”

“Yeah.” She rubbed at her temples more vigorously than was reasonable. The beginnings of a headache were circling around her. “So. I get it. I don’t necessarily agree with your reasoning. So, a break then? And we can get back to each other if things change, yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re taking this awfully well.”

“I suppose. You’re being a prick about it, but you’re probably right.”

“Well. I’ll shove off then. Ah. Can I…kiss you?”

She rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the collar. “Course you can, idiot.” She kissed him firmly on the mouth, and pulled back before it got heated. “Don’t be angry with me for calling you out. You’re just not the person I need to hear this from right now. Just. Say hi to Nat for me. Maybe tell her I’m sorry for barging in on her the other night too.”

When he left, clearly a bit confused and wobbly, Sally crashed back on the couch, then sat up, realizing she’d just laid down on a pile of old knickers. She needed to clean up the flat, first order of business. Time to make the place hers again, if she wasn’t welcome anywhere else.

\--

On Monday morning, she knew there would be trouble the minute she arrived at the Met. Anderson was on the elevator, but his awkward silence felt only natural. It was Dimmock’s startled, wary glance at her as she got off the lift that clued her in. Something was coming up. Something she wouldn’t like. She popped by Lestrade’s desk first. He glanced first at her empty hand and she thought to remind him that she wasn’t an assistant and had more important things to do than to fetch his coffee. His second glance was at her face, and the look of guilt on his own was all she needed to see.

“You have got to be kidding me. Already?”

“Sally.” Holmes’s voice swept in from behind her. He maneuvered around her while she clutched the doorframe, appalled by her body’s sudden weakness. She’d known he’d been alive for a week now, had heard his voice at the other end of the phone. But the brush of his coat (the same tweed greatcoat as before, she noted) was chilling still. She continued glaring at Lestrade.

“Sherlock Holmes. Can’t say I expected to see you here today.” He didn’t respond, of course, simply reached over Lestrade’s desk to the file drawer below, tipping himself forward mechanically to rifle through the paperwork within. She raised an eyebrow at Lestrade, who was still staring at her, wincing. She hoped she was telegraphing her outrage loudly enough. On his ascent, Sally noticed that Holmes’s hair was shorter, his face paler — hardly possible, she’d have thought — and more gaunt than three years ago. For all that his beauty had lain in the severity of his features — yes, she’d always acknowledged his beauty, resented its power where her own only got her catcalls and harassment — it was a bad look on him. “You look like you could use a sandwich or three.”

“I’ll thank you to remember I don’t eat while I’m on a case, Sergeant. It is still Sergeant, isn’t it?”

“I must have deleted it. And yeah it is, still, thanks to you.” She smirked. “What case?”

Lestrade coughed into his fist. “The girls in Willesden.”

“Oh, so you admit they’re connected, now?”

He gave her a stern look. “I admit no such thing, I just trust your judgment that there’s something amiss. Seemed like the sort of thing Sherlock could wrap up nicely in a big terrible bow for us, yeah?”

“And the Chief Inspector? Has he approved of this?”

“Sally—”

“Have you completely forgotten? He just walks back in and snatches up cases from me as though nothing has happened at all?”

Holmes was against the window behind Lestrade now. When had he moved? He was smiling, smug. He knew something. Lestrade looked back at him and huffed irritably. “Knock it off, the two of you. Sherlock, get on with it. I’ll call this afternoon.” The freak swanned off, his coat grazing her shin on its arc out the door. “Sally. I did talk to Gregson. He’s signed off on Sherlock as an official consultant with the Met. This is all above board. And the only reason I called him in on the Willesden girls is because I knew you were scouring for links. Which, by the way, do you have anything for us?”

“I spoke to Annie Clark’s older sister, Sheila. She wouldn’t give up any names, but I think both she and Annie were being abused. She’s clammed up completely, so I think it’s family, but she left a message with me last night: wants to meet up later today when she has her appointment with the social worker. So I’ll have that for you soon enough.”

“Good. And Sherlock is going to be help, I’m sure, if you’re right and there’s a connection. But you’re going to have to learn to work with him. Not all of the time. But our solve rate is half of what it was three years ago, and you know the reason why. We need him.”

“Look, Lestrade. We. We never even got on when he was…before. You know that. After everything that’s happened, we cannot do this. He and I. He’s not going to work with me.”

Lestrade gave her a searching look. “I know why you’d think that—”

“—yeah? Why is that?”

“Christ, Donovan, let’s not get into it. What I mean to say is that I don’t think you understand how badly he needs us right now. As much as we do him, that’s for sure. He’s not just at loose ends, he doesn’t have a bloody thing to hold on to save the work.”

“Did he ever?”

“He had Watson for a while. Who, good on him, healed up and got married. So, yeah, Sherlock’s fairly broken up and needs something to keep him off the tops of tall buildings, if you see what I mean. He’ll work with you. He doesn’t have any other options, if he wants to keep John around at all, even as a colleague.”

“As a coll— bloody hell, are they working together on this then? Like, is Watson on his way over? Jesus, Lestrade, warn a person!” Lestrade’s look was as good as a question. “I haven’t seen him in two years at least, but the last time I did it didn’t go well, all right? The man’s a bloody pitbull when he’s angry.”

“Then don’t make him angry. I don’t know if Sherlock will be able to rope him in to this, but the man hasn’t changed all that much; I bet he’ll have dropped anything to chase after the wanker by the end of the week. So there’s your warning.”

“Christ.”

“Best get to it, Donovan. It’d do you both some good if you got to the bottom of this before he could.”

\--

He was waiting for her on her desk, sitting cross-legged atop it, hands steepled beneath his meagre excuse for a chin. He was looking at the opened file in front of him, and began speaking as though to himself the moment she walked in the door.

“You’ve gained nearly a stone in three years. Your mother was ill, but has improved, and your relationship with both her and your sister…sisters? No, sister. Has deteriorated. I could have told you that your dalliance with Anderson wouldn’t have lasted, and I’m hardly surprised that you’ve taken up with another married man. The weight gain is recent, indicating a change in your mental state: either the relationship has been good to you or it’s been awful…judging from the state of your hair and the beard burn on your upper lip and chin from yesterday’s encounter, I’ll say it’s a good one. Unusual: you’re out of his league. He’s overweight, not wealthy, married, as I said, and his standards of grooming leave much to be desired: there’s cat hair on your trousers, but you’re allergic: if it were your cat you’d be taking medication to alleviate your symptoms. Your failed relationship with Molly Hooper, though, that’s rather unexpected. The relationship, not the failure. I imagine that might account for the sudden distance between you and your remaining relatives: they couldn’t have seen that one coming either and they disapproved, not unusual, from what I’m given to understand about West Indian cultures. So what ended it, beyond your general unsuitability? Given your track record, I’d assume infidelity, though likely on your part and not hers. Couldn’t stay away from the married ones, if I could hazard a guess.” He finally looked up at her, utterly confident and, if it was possible, happy to see her, or at least to show off for an old favorite opponent. “How’d I do?”

“Missed a bit, but not bad for taking three years off.”

He scoffed. “’Off.’ I haven’t taken a moment off since the day you met me, Sally. I’ve been entertaining more dangerous minds than yours.” He stared at her. Sally hadn’t missed his icy grey eyes. “You’re different.”

“A lot has changed while you’ve been gone, Holmes.”

“You’re…oh!” She resisted hiding in the hallway at the predatory look on his face. “He’s not _cheating_ with you, is he? Unusual. Isn’t that refreshing for you, Sally, one less thing to feel ashamed of.”

She decided it wasn’t worth telling him they’d just split up: it certainly wouldn’t make her look any better. “Closer, anyway. Follow through on that thought though.”

He drew his eyebrows together. The grooves on his forehead had deepened since she’d seen him last. “You didn’t cheat on Molly — odd, your bisexuality and general moral decrepitude led me astray there —”

“Oi!”

“But she did leave. And I know Molly Hooper, she’s loyal as a spaniel…” He trailed off, and the look on his face was suddenly one of guilt, gone by the time she recognized it.

“Yeah. Looks like I need to have that chat with her, don’t I? Seems you fucked up more innocent bystanders than you’d accounted for, yeah? Not just Watson.”

“John is not up for discussion. And you were hardly innocent, were you?” He snarled at her, actually frothing a bit. He’d gone rather unhinged, she thought, letting herself float in the ether above the conversation. Once her heart rate had slowed to a reasonable level and Holmes’s face had returned to its customary pallor, she sank back to herself and looked him in the eye. He’d said something cunning, or thought he had. That self-satisfied gleam was back in his eyes.

“Out of my office, Holmes. If you need me about the case, talk to Greg. Should be easy enough to get a hold of him from his sofa.” He huffed at her and left. The dramatic-coat routine was getting a bit stale already. Sally sat against the edge of her desk, letting her head fall back for a moment just to breathe. In, _Molly_. Out, _Molly_. She shivered and opened up her texts. Found Molly’s from last week. Replied.

_You’re right. We need to talk. I’m free Wednesday night. Mine or yours?_

The response was almost instantaneous.

_Mine. 8:00? Thank you, Sally._

\--

Sally had been about to call Greg about the case, but when she looked at her phone she saw she’d missed a text, from Holmes, commanding her to meet them at the morgue. She thought about calling anyway, but decided she’d rather show up Holmes in person. The meeting with Sheila had unearthed a name, finally. Sheila and Annie’s godfather, Jeremy, who lived just a few blocks away, had been molesting them for years. Sheila herself had been terrified of retribution, of her mother finding out and not believing her. She didn’t think he’d touched Keisha, who was his granddaughter, but she suspected Annie had told Keisha and he’d threatened her to keep her quiet. Keisha, who had already had so much on her mind. It wasn’t a murder. But there was still someone to hold responsible, and Sally relished the opportunity to lock him up. She had secured safe housing for Sheila through the social worker, promised to come back to see her the next day, arranged an arrest warrant for the godfather, and sent a squad car to his house, not trusting herself to show up with a weapon and without a partner to hold her off.

At Bart’s, Sally took a moment to worry about bumping into Molly. The humidity had wrecked her hair, and there were dark patches under the arms of her shirt. But it was Tuesday morning, and there was almost no way she’d be in yet: she’d worked Tuesday nights as long as Sally had known her. Just Greg to contend with, then, and she would let him see her sweaty and disheveled.

She headed down the steps to the morgue and was nearly knocked in the head by the stairwell door, opened as it was with such force. She’d jumped back just in time, but now John Watson was in the stairwell with her, and she wished she’d just gotten off with a closed head injury instead. As it was, she was frozen in place. He looked terrible. Seething with anger at the moment, yes, but in ways that spoke of a few hard years as well. He’d gained a bit of weight, and his eyes were puffy. His skin was waxy, no hint of the tan he’d sported in years past. His hair was several shades farther into grey now, and badly in need of a trim. Sally’s first thought was that marriage wasn’t suiting him well at all, but her second was that marriage may have been suiting him just fine until Holmes was resurrected. Nothing wrong with a bit of comfort weight: the painful thing to see was the brittle, angry look in his eyes. It looked less like his beloved detective had returned from the dead, and more like he was still being haunted.

“Hello, John.” His scowl deepened. Sally had seen that look before: apparently whatever anger he’d been carrying around on the other side of that door was now being transferred to her. “Is Lestrade…are Lestrade and Holmes in there now?”

He held out a hand to bar her way. “Keep out of it, Donovan. He’s solving it for you. You’re not needed here.”

“He texted me. He wants me here.”

“Do everyone a favor and stay the hell away from him. You don’t deserve to be in the same room with him.”

She couldn’t find it in herself to be shocked by the outburst, but he was doing a bang-up job of making her angry. “It’s my case, John. If you’ve got something to say to me you’ve got five minutes.” His look for her was the barest contempt. “What had you running off anyway? He kicked you out, didn’t he? Thinking too loud? Being too stupid too close?”

“Don’t you say another word about—”

“I know.” She waved him off, leaning against the end of the handrail at the bottom of the stairs, itching to move. “You always were his attack dog, I won’t provoke you any more.” He shook his head disgustedly. She saw, now, shame in his posture. Holmes had insulted him again. And since when did she feel protective of his lackey? He’d been silent for a long minute, and finally shook his head at her before trotting up the stairs. “I’m sorry,” she called up after him, so reluctantly that the apology nearly stayed trapped in her throat. “For what it’s worth.” He stopped before heading up the next flight, without turning around.

“Pardon?”

“I’m sorry. For what I did.”

“You’re sorry.”

“I’m not sorry I talked to Lestrade. I did the right thing and I don’t give a damn what you think about it. But I’m sorry it hurt you like this. I mean. I know I didn’t personally hurt you. But a lot of people fucked up together to pull it all off, and I don’t know that any of the others are going to apologize to you. So, I’m sorry. I wish Holmes were a big enough man to say the same.”

Sally stared at his stilled back for a moment. “He did, actually.”

“Excuse me?”

“Apologize. I know you think he’s not human, but he did. Apologize.” John turned, just looking at her out of the corner of his eye, then let his gaze shift to the wall behind her. “His brother and Greg, they said their piece to me three years ago. About what they did. And Molly came by to beg forgiveness as soon as he was back. So you’re not the only one to apologize. You’re just the last.”

“You do realize that I didn’t actually want him to kill himself. I mean, no one has suffered like you have, of course, but it’s not been a bloody picnic for me, wondering if I did the wrong thing.”

“Well, you did the wrong thing, so—”

“No,” she blurted, “No I did bloody well not do the wrong thing. He. The two of you had been violating department protocol since you began. You hadn’t been vetted, you hadn’t been contracted to work with us, and all of a sudden we have evidence linking Holmes to a kidnapping, and god knows what else. And I did not believe it, not entirely, but caution is part of my bloody job, isn’t it? I told you, I don’t feel guilty about turning him in, I feel guilty that he left you for three years when you loved him so fucking much. I know there’s nothing can fix that, and I. I do feel really, truly sorry about it.” She took a breath, saw that John had turned to face her, finally, and appeared, if not mollified, at least less likely to throttle her. Her mind caught on his earlier tirade. “You said Molly’s apologized.”

He was quiet for a moment, and in his still observation she was reminded of Holmes. There was kindness behind it, though. “I did. I probably shouldn’t have said. You need to talk to her yourself.” He began to descend the stairs toward her, apparently calm enough now that he could safely get within striking distance without actually striking.

“We’re getting together tomorrow.”

“Do that. She deserves better than all of this.”

“All of what?”

“You, of course.” Sally could feel her cheeks heating, and she began to move for the door to the morgue. “She misses you. She stood up to Sherlock for you, the other day. I’d never seen her do anything like it before. She sounded like you but less of a total bitch.”

Sally was surprised into a laugh. “No, can’t see her going quite that far.” He started back up the stairs. “Hang on, he’ll need you now, you know. Especially if he’s going to be dealing with me.”

“He won’t need me.”

She stepped up to grab at the arm of his shooting jacket, which he tugged away irritably. “He always does, you know that.”

\--

Holmes had solved the case, of course, and told her at length before she had a moment to breathe in protest. Apparently it was “obvious” that her abuser had been an older male relative: “A decade of abuse, as good as written on her body, and you’ve missed it.” Sally had intended to barge in triumphantly: to finally show him up. But he was right, and John was agape in the corner, and Sally felt an unexpected surge of gratitude for his return. That gratitude lasted until Holmes began sniping at Molly’s observational skills, her poor eye for detail, and Sally decided he’d had long enough.

“Shut it, Holmes.”

He smirked at her. “Ah, yes, a touchy subject for you. Nevertheless, only a rank amateur could have missed—”

“She did a good enough job on you. She made you dead, didn’t she? Dead enough for all of us to believe it. You owe her, so you can act like it or you can get the hell off of my case.” Sally cautioned a glance to Lestrade. She was overstepping the line here, and she knew it, but he merely looked at her calmly down his nose, leaning back against the tiled wall, and nodded slightly. Not giving the command, but supporting hers. She could have kissed him. When she looked, she saw John staring Holmes down as well, completely inscrutable and tense with his own silence and inaction. Holmes coughed and straightened up, probably deleting the last thirty seconds.

“You’ll want to look into their extended families. There’s a link, a common relative, likely on the maternal side for both girls, if John is correct about this spinal anomaly. They did commit suicide, of course, he’s not a murderer — sorry, Sally, I know how much you wanted to solve your own Study in Pink—” He shot John a thin smile and turned back to Sally. “But they were driven to it, and if he collects memorabilia as I suspect he does, you’ll have plenty of evidence to convict, which may go some way to absolve you of your ridiculous feelings of guilt over— ” He paused again and narrowed his eyebrows. Sally let out the breath she’d been holding, felt her fingers tingling anxiously.

“Thank you, Sherlock,” she murmured. “You’ve been a help.” She turned to Lestrade. “I’ve already called in Caine and Hartnell to arrest Jeremy Millner on charges of child molestation.” Sherlock looked at her hard, startled for once. She smirked at him, he sneered back like a teenager, and things were back to the way they’d always been.

Holmes loped off toward the stairs, and John followed. As they turned the corner, Sherlock paused to look at him, and Sally could see the heat between them as if it were radiating off of them in waves. She figured they’d be in bed within 24 hours, else they’d spontaneously combust from the effort of not shagging each other stupid.

“Right,” Lestrade coughed, clearly trying to burn the sight of them out of his retinas. He scuffed his loafers on the floor. “Look, anyway, I wanted to…We haven’t discussed what happened before Sherlock left. It strikes me it might still be weighing on you.”

“Maybe it is. I can handle it. Just need to work out who I’m angriest at, Sherlock, Molly or myself.”

“Ah. Haven’t talked to her yet, then?”

“Tomorrow night. So how did you know about her, anyway?”

Lestrade looked up at her and chuckled, not unkindly. “Sally. Seriously, how else could he have pulled it off? She’s a clever one, that girl. You are too, usually.”

“How was I the last to figure it out, then?”

“Love’s a hell of a drug, darlin’. Hard to see past it.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Off with you. Go wrap this up so you can take off tomorrow evening and mend things with Molls.”

\--

Even though she’d gotten out of work fifteen minutes early, triumphantly handing over her paperwork on Keisha and Annie and rushing home, Sally was nearly late. She was never late for anything, not ever. She spent the bus ride to Molly’s flat in a cold sweat, going over hypothetical excuses for her tardiness, ones that sounded better than “I was standing in front of my bathroom mirror rehearsing what I had to say to you until I realized I’d meant to have left fifteen minutes earlier.” She caught herself speaking under her breath, another imagined dialogue, drawing nervous glances from the elderly Jamaican women across the aisle. Her hands shook as she checked the time on her phone, thinking of her mother and trying not to. She wasn’t going to be late at all: she’d budgeted 20 extra minutes into the trip, because she always did, because she always worried she’d find a way to sabotage herself. She’d be fine. She was always fine.

She’d wondered, while getting herself ready, how to classify the occasion, at least for the purposes of getting dressed. When they’d been dating, they’d both liked dressing to go out, or even to eat in. Where Molly dressed much more practically at work--of course she had to, elbow-deep in corpses like she was--Sally did rather the opposite: it didn’t do her any favors, professionally, to be seen as masculine. She femmed it up a bit, in heels taller than she was really comfortable with and skirts that gave Holmes the opportunity to comment on her knees, as though she had to offset her competence so as not to intimidate the higher-ups. Not Lestrade: he wasn’t cowed by anyone. But Gregson and the like, they wanted the women on the squad to look like women, or so she’d heard them say.

Even at home, though, while she didn’t fuss with the dresses Molly loved (and looked so lovely in), she still liked looking smart. There was a thrill to having a perfectly controlled wardrobe, like armour. When she and Molly had gone out at night, no one could touch them. But tonight: they weren’t dating anymore, of course, and it wasn’t a date. But it was drinks in the evening, most likely. And Sally couldn’t have denied, while dressing, the tripping of her pulse, erratic and wild. It could be a date. It could be the first of many, again. But to show up looking so hopeful, and after…after a betrayal, of sorts, which was how she was thinking of it now. It would be humiliating, ingratiating. So, nice jeans, black button-up, minimal makeup. Nothing flashy, still presentable. Almost date material, but not quite.

Sally blushed when Molly opened her door. She was in an old t-shirt and pyjama pants. Not even her own old t-shirt, but one Sally knew had belonged to an ex-boyfriend years ago, one she’d inherited in a quick breakup. So, not a date at all then.

“Hi.”

Molly was blushing too, which made it even worse: they both knew wires had gone crossed, and were trying to pretend they didn’t know. “Come in. Sorry, it was…just had a long day at work and I sort of crashed soon as I got in.”

“No, it’s fine. Mine was rough too.” Of course, as soon as she said it, she understood the subtext: _but I got dressed for you anyway_. She pushed it aside and walked through the door, noting the changes since she’d last been over. It was…well, messier. Not a wreck, not at all. But there was evidence all over. Shopping bags not emptied on the counters. Wine bottles by the sink that hadn’t made it to the bins. A general dimness, and Sally hoped she wasn’t projecting (knew she was projecting), but thought it looked as though she hadn’t been out much lately, had been spending a lot of time in ratty t-shirts and pyjama pants drinking on her sofa. Which may have been a good enough descriptor of Sally’s own social life, sans Vik, but she took in a moment’s relief to see that she wasn’t the only one having a hard time of it.

“Sit,” Molly called from the kitchen, “Wine?”

“If you’re having some, yeah.”

On the couch, wine in hands, they sat together cautiously, knees parallel to each other and deliberately, definitely separate. Sally drank, too quickly, and slumped back, letting her head loll against the sofa for a moment. “So.”

“So.” She was biting her lower lip, which had purple winestains in the creases. Looked terrified, and sad, and impossibly pretty. “You…you must know.”

“I’m not a total idiot, Molly. It only took about five separate people telling me before I figured it out.”

She giggled, looked mortified. She must have been just a little bit drunk already. “Oh god. I. I’m sorry, that’s not funny.”

“Only a little. So, I mean, I know you helped him.”

“Do you. Do you want to know how?” She’d drawn her knees up, letting her heels fan out beneath her. She was even smaller than usual, and Sally was seized with the urge to hoist her up into her lap.

“No. Not right now. What I wanted to talk about was. Ah. Is this why.”

“Why…yes, it is. Sort of.”

“Sort of.” Molly was, by then, almost completely tucked into the couch. “Jesus, Molls, I’m not going to attack you. This is. It’s just the autopsy report, all right? Give me cause of death.”

That had been, absolutely, the wrong thing to say. Molly was sitting up, but had tears in her eyes and was staring intently at her hands. But after a few moments of slow breaths, she came back to herself, and Sally was floored by the memory of her doing this so many times before, pushing down her tears and struggling forward. Christ, how had someone so open ever been able to contain such an enormous lie?

“It was, a lot of it was because of that. I. You know I’m terrible at keeping secrets. I mean, I’m not actually terrible at it, I never tell secrets, I just. I’m just no good at hiding anything. Especially from you. It was. It was really, awfully difficult, and every time his name came up I thought for sure that you knew.”

“I didn’t. Hadn’t the faintest.”

“I know. I mean, I know that now. But. You got so angry about it. Not about me, but about him. You’d get so furious, and you stayed that way. I thought it’d get easier, and you just never let it go. And every time, I knew it was going to come out. Can you imagine if he’d come back and we were still together? It was always going to end, and this was the best way to do it. I’m sorry I couldn’t let you know why.”

“Why didn’t you just trust me enough to tell me?”

“I don’t tell secrets, I told you. I mean, I might have. I’d tell you all sorts of secrets. But there were lives at stake, Sally. I couldn’t risk it. Not even for you. I didn’t want blood on my hands.”

“Not like I had.”

Molly blinked up at her, releasing her lip from her teeth. The white of her her skin where it had been bitten flared red. “You don’t, though.”

“Course I do.”

“Not. Not real blood.”

“Real enough to convince everyone for three years. It was all pretend to you, I get that, but to me he was dead, and I got him that way. Of course I was angry about it.” Sally’s hands were trembling, and she set down her wineglass on the coffee table. Molly’s arms wrapped around her from behind, but Sally was too tense, too tightly-sprung with anger to accept anything as gentle as a hug. She brushed Molly off firmly. “Too late for that, Molls. You’re right. We weren’t going anywhere in the first place.”

“Sally.” She was sitting back again, but reaching pathetically for Sally’s face. “I’m so sorry. I am. I don’t know how I could have done it differently. But I should have found a way.”

“You could have trusted me.”

“You hated him. Loudly. And at length. I didn’t know what you’d have done if you’d found out before he came back. Maybe that was unkind of me. But I still. I still don’t know what you’d have done. I’m just sorry it hurt you, not knowing for so long.”

“I know.” They sat in silence for a moment, sipping awkwardly at the terrible wine. “You know, the worst part of having him back is waiting for him to lash out because of everything that happened. Or take it out on me, like, deduce me in front of everyone.”

“Yeah, he’d do that.”

“But he hasn’t. And even in private…I mean, he’s an absolute dick, but he’s not malicious. Never called me out about the Walters case.”

Molly scooted forward, finally animated again. “The suicide. And the…the related suicide?”

“Yeah. Like, they were suicides. But now I’ve got their abuser in custody. I even beat Sherlock to him, actually. Anyway, he was a right prick about you, at the morgue. But he didn’t call me out.”

“What could he possibly have called you out about?”

“Well, it’s like you said. I knew the girls.” Sally took a deep breath, felt that she was exposing a great deal more than she actually was. “It got personal. I…related too much to the family situation. Made it about me. And he knew. I mean, I know he knew.”

“Wait, how would this be personal, then? You weren’t ever—”

“Oh! God, no, not personal like that. No, no one ever molested me. Yeah, no, I mean personal like. Like I felt responsible for them, and I was letting them down. I mean. This is obviously, I mean, if you ever see my sister or my mum again you never heard this, but my little sister, when she was fifteen, she was assaulted. Not the same sort of situation. But I was the one she told. And I. I mean, I did the right thing, telling our mum, I know. But she clammed up after that. Wouldn’t talk to either of us. Still hardly talks to me. I mean, it’s not just that, we’ve got all sorts of problems. But that was the start of it. I was supposed to fix it myself and I couldn’t. Which is stupid, I know. But it’s there, in my head, and I know Sherlock saw it there. Or some of it, at least. God, probably none of it, I’m probably inventing things. Maybe I’m just giving him ways to settle the debt.”

“Maybe he didn’t know. Or maybe he grew up a bit while he was off playing spy games.” Molly smiled and cautiously ran her hand up Sally’s arm. Sally looked at that hand, slim and white and gentle.

“Don’t think he’s a gentleman all of a sudden. He was a complete arse the first time I saw him at the Yard.”

“Yeah?” Molly’s thumb was rubbing small circles above Sally’s elbow, through the cool film of her shirt. Sally did some mental calculations and decided it was time to come clean.

“Yeah, he did his deductions about my sex life. All wrong, for once, by the way. But he did it in private, so there’s that.”

Molly’s face went long, almost comically. Sally could see the exact moment she remembered that she’d forfeited her claim. Molly manipulated her face into a tight smile. “How’s that going, then?”

“Sort of brilliant. Or, was. I don’t know.”

Biting her lip again, Molly paused before blurting out, “Please don’t tell me you’re back with Paul.”

“Paul? Course not, don’t be stupid, Molly. I’m an idiot sometimes, but not an enough to go back to that. Besides, if I had, my sex life wouldn’t be anything close to brilliant, let me tell you. No, there’s just a good friend I’ve got who I’ve been sleeping with, and Sherlock got the wrong idea about him.”

“Him. Anyone I know?”

“Nope, total civilian. Name’s Vik, he’s a dear.”

“Why would Sherlock get the wrong idea about him? And did you break up with him, then? You said ‘was.’”

Sally picked up her empty wine glass for something to do, twirled the stem in her fingers. The fidgeting got to be too much so she pushed herself to her feet from the sofa (too soft, too low, hurt her knees every time she did it) and reached out. “More wine?”

“Thanks.”

On the way to the kitchen, Sally started speaking again, coward that she was. “We’re…well, not broken up, we never had the kind of relationship you can really break up from. But we’re taking a break while I get my head together. Which, I mean, it was his idea, but it was a good one. He’s. Um. Married. But not…he’s not cheating, he’s got an open marriage, and his wife Nat’s lovely, she’s got her own boyfriend. But. That’s complicated enough, right? And, my life’s gotten a lot more complicated over the last couple of weeks too, you know, and I haven’t really been handling it at all well. So, we’re taking a break. From the sex bit, not the friends bit, I’d be more upset if it was that too.” She returned with two glasses, probably more full than they needed to be. Molly had the most curious expression on her face; Sally couldn’t get a read on it at all.

“Has he been making you happy?”

“Well. Yes, I suppose. But that’s not really a good thing, is it? He’s. You should meet him sometime, you’d like him. He’s a very generous person, so when you’re with him, you feel like you have all his attention. But you don’t, really, I mean, you can’t. So. It’s gotten a bit difficult for me to keep it all straight.”

“What’s ‘all’”

“Well, like, I’m not in love with him. But I am fond of him. And he’s emotionally available up to a certain point, and then, wham, door’s closed. Which, I like Nat, I said I do and I really do. And they have a really good relationship. She does a lot better than I’d ever do with him anyway. So it’s not like I even want to be an interloper.” Molly’s disapproving look, complete with crossed arms, was so adorable Sally almost forgot to be cowed by it. “Yeah, you know how I’m wired. It just doesn’t work out like that for me.”

“I remember. What’s the new complication, then?”

Sally looked up from the ripples in her glass, stopped clinking on the stem. “You, of course. Well, and Sherlock. I, ah, might have thrown a bit of a wobbly at his place when I found out. He’s the one who told me you must have been involved. He’s not best pleased with you at the moment.”

“Well, I’ve never met him and all I know about him is that he’s decided you’re making his _open marriage_ too _complicated_ and broken up with you over it.” Molly’s eyes were comically fierce. “So I can’t really find it in me to be bothered by that now.”

Sally laughed, startled. “Oh Molls. Don’t go all protective, I can take care of myself. And I mean it, he’s a good man. He’s very thoughtful and considerate, and he wouldn’t have ever wanted to hurt me. And he hasn’t, really.”

“He hasn’t.”

“No. We’re still friends. I understand, and I’m not hurt. Just, you know, incredibly sexually frustrated, but I’ve dealt with worse.” She chuckled into the glass.

“So you don’t think you’ll start back up with him again, then?”

“I don’t know. It depends.”

“On?”

Looking up again, Sally saw that Molly had leaned closer, and the air between them was nearly vibrating with potential energy. “It’s not really for me to ask.” Molly cocked her head, granting permission to continue, teething at the curve of her lip. “…but. If this is the reason you left.”

“I said it was. Most of the reason, anyway.”

“Well, where does that put us, then?”

“I’m not sure.” Molly let her palm rest on Sally’s shoulder. The touch was tentative, and a tremendous relief. “Where do you want us to be?”

Molly leaned forward further, then paused. Her hair, loose since Sally had returned from the kitchen, swung back and forth softly. Sally steeled herself and put her hands on Molly’s shoulders, not pushing her back, but bracing herself against the growing temptation to skip any important parts. That particular idea was better in theory than in execution. The fabric of Molly’s t-shirt was thin and soft, and through it Sally could feel the warmth of her skin, the edge and dip of her collarbones, the beating of her pulse, hot and quick. Sally pulled back, not wanting to make this any harder.

“I don’t want to just slip back into things,” she murmured. “I do, of course I do, but. It’ll never work, if we do that. It’ll be the same as before. And I’m still angry that you lied to me, sort of. I know why you did it, and I can’t even bring myself to blame you for it. But I’m not going to be able to just forgive you, not right this minute.”

Molly’s eyes glistened, and she nodded. “I understand. Didn’t think you’d let me off that easy, really.”

“Look, I said I know why you did it. And I mean it. Don’t beat yourself up.” Molly nodded, curled to her side and tucked her head under Sally’s jaw. The intimacy of the pose nearly choked Sally, and she had to force a breath around the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry too. For being such a jerk about it all, back then.”

“Which time in particular?”

“Um. All of them, probably.”

Molly huffed a breath against Sally’s neck: it could have been laughter or irritation: most likely both. “I think I understood, most of the time. Now it’s all out in the open though, right?”

“How much less angry do I seem to you, Molly?”

“Mmm. A little?” She definitely laughed. “No, not at all. But now we can talk about it, when you are, right? I don’t have any other terrible secrets, I promise. Just the one.”

Sally nudged Molly up off of her, gently this time. “Just the one. Not like that was a big deal or anything.”

But Molly was quick—somehow Sally had forgotten that about her, and the recollection made her flush with want—and slid up onto Sally’s lap, legs astride hers, forcing eye contact where Sally had been keen to avoid it. “I don’t mean to be flippant. But, you know, it happened, and it happened three years ago, I’m sorry about it, but I can’t take it back. And seeing as how neither of us could have been expected to do anything differently, knowing what we knew, can we please just try to move on from it all?” She was nearly straddling Sally now, fierce and irritated and gorgeous. “I’m getting pretty tired of sitting here not kissing you.”

All of Sally’s resolve faded in a moment, and she leaned back and let herself be kissed, Molly’s long, thin mouth locking itself against hers. They fitted against each other in a rush, and Sally felt the incredible thrill of recognizing that her body knew exactly how to move, knew where her hands needed to be, knew the shape of Molly’s breasts and waist, the slide of her hair across her back. But it was different, now, Molly not only atop her but forceful, as though she’d been holding back a swell of lust and emotion all this time, and now it was crashing against Sally’s prone form. Molly held Sally down by her shoulders, rougher than she ever had before, and kissed, suckled, at her neck, pulling aside the collar of her shirt, and scrabbling for the buttons when she couldn’t pull it far enough.

Sally gasped. Writhed against the hard arm of the sofa. She’d been having far too much sex on sofas lately. “Ah. Bedroom?”

Molly smiled down at her sweetly and dragged her up by her hand, and her eagerness was a shock and a delight. Sally was pulled briskly to Molly’s room, a frothing sea of pink, where before, when the room had been theirs, it had been a sterile white plain. And there was Molly, firmly in her element, pressing Sally onto the duvet and bracing herself high above. The effect was modulated, a bit, by the ratty sleeves of her t-shirt, the snarl of her hair post-snog. But only a bit. Sally was covered in gooseflesh and unable to speak when Molly tossed off the shirt and asked, “So what do you need from me, Sally?” Of course her bra was an entrancing bit of pink lace: that was enough to break Sally’s silence with a chuckle. “What’s funny?”

Sally smoothed her palms over Molly’s pert breasts, her thumbs grazing Molly’s soft, swollen nipples through the rough lace. “Just this. S’not funny, I’ve just missed it. Good to see you again, is all.” Molly caught the breath she’d lost and looked down sternly at her, climbing up to kneel astride her.

“I’m glad. But I mean it. Tell me what you need from me.”

Sally tried to right herself, to kiss Molly again, feeling her grasp of the situation slipping away. But Molly just smirked at her and wouldn’t budge, scrap of a thing that she was. “I need to touch you, Molls, you know that.”

“No you don’t. You need someone to take better care of you right now, and you’re going to let me be the one to do it. Now budge up.” Molly followed her back to the head of the bed, directing her with a thigh shoved roughly between Sally’s legs. When Sally felt the headboard against her shoulders, Molly drew herself up, still using her arms to brace Sally’s shoulders while she moved to the side. “Jeans off.”

Sally was breathless now. And unsettled, but she could hardly deny her arousal, not when her fingers were fumbling so badly, and the knickers she peeled off were glistening and wet. “Molly. What are you—” And Molly was unbuttoning Sally’s shirt with one hand and yanking down the thin cup of her bra, splaying her thighs with the other, slipping up and down her labia, gathering wetness and watching Sally’s face intently.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I remember.” She slid her hand to the crease of Sally’s hip and let her thumb strum gently over her clit, bending her head down to bite sharply at her nipple. The shock of the two sensations at once had Sally gasping, and she grabbed for Molly’s hair, perhaps too hard, lifting for another kiss. Molly broke it, and clasped Sally’s shoulder firmly, still dragging her thumb in wide circles around her clit. She said, with an authority Sally had never heard before, “Let me. You have to let me. Trust me, and I will take care of you, Sally.”

Sally felt herself freeze up in a panic, and Molly stilled her hands, bringing them to rest high on Sally’s bared thighs. Molly’s face was set in a carefully neutral expression, and the silence between them stretched out.The very moment Molly opened her mouth to speak, Sally knew: _if I can’t trust her, I’ll lose her all over again_. She raised a finger to Molly’s lips. “It’s okay. You can touch me. Just.”

“Just what?”

“Slow it down a bit, all right? ‘S not a race. I’ve missed you.”

Molly’s smile was wide enough to overtake her face. “All right then.” She stayed above Sally, and helped her remove her shirt and bra, then set to work examining everything she’d missed, keeping her thigh pressed tight to Sally’s cunt, letting it slide wetly while she kissed, licked, and stroked Sally all over her body. She drew her hands down to feel the new roundness of Sally’s belly. Sally flinched a bit, not usually self-conscious, but then again, not used to being scrutinized by someone so much smaller than herself. Molly shook her head and lowered herself down, still stroking and grabbing at Sally’s hips and belly, then kissing it wetly and settling herself back between the curves of her Sally’s thighs. “Gorgeous,” she murmured, biting softly at the fullest part of her thigh, letting her fingers trail down through Sally’s bush and into her sodden cunt as she did.

Sally drew in a slow, shuddering breath, and tried to keep from sitting up and pushing Molly off. It felt amazing. It did, yes, feel amazing, and she could let it feel amazing, she repeated to herself again and again. Molly slipped two fingers inside of her, quickly and easily, christ she was wet, and Sally grasped inadvertently at the sheets, her abs clenching at nothing. “Hey. Hold on to the rails.” Molly’s fingers curled up, up inside her, and Sally felt her ribs arch up off the bed at the deep, throbbing pressure of them. Her head tipped back, and yes, there were the rails at the head of the bed, antiqued white and within her reach. She began to lift her arms toward them when Molly moved from suckling and nipping at her thighs to lapping at her clit, still rocking her fingers up hard into Sally’s g-spot. Sally’s hands flew to the rails and she held on as tightly as she was able, skin prickling with sweat and heat. She found herself minutes later hyperventilating in a haze of want, riding at the edge of an orgasm that just wouldn’t come. Molly broke away just long enough to ask hoarsely, “Come on, Sally, tell me.”

“No, this is good,” she panted.

Molly’s hand stilled, and when Sally huffed irritably and tried thrusting back against her, Molly’s left arm shot up rest heavily against her hips, pinning her. “Not good enough. Tell me what you need.”

“Ah.” She breathed in through her teeth, tried to feel angry but just felt embarrassed. Fuck it. “Um, harder. Not just your tongue, like, sucking. And one more finger: push up harder, like this.” She released one hand and demonstrated with a gesture in the empty air, shaking hard as Molly changed her angle of attack. Sally clamped her eyes shut and let out a tremendous groan, though she’d been trying to keep quiet: the concentric waves of her orgasm rippled through her, each smaller than the last.

Molly had shifted up, the lower half of her face shining, but her hand—three fingers, in fact—was still pressed inside Sally, fingertips still rolling rhythmically. Without the sharp pressure on her clit, Sally could feel herself sinking back into a deep, rocking rhythm. It was too much, too soon, but Molly was kissing her thighs and belly again, eyes dark, and Sally could feel herself coil tight once more. “Oh, fuck, Molly. Fuck. Please.” Molly gasped delightedly and began thrusting in earnest with her poor, overworked hand, hard enough that her knuckles were battering Sally’s labia. But Sally hardly noticed, as Molly had worked her free hand around and was circling her tender clit, skating across it erratically and driving her to come again, this time longer, stuttering, leaving her curled up on her side and panting.

She heard, past the roaring in her ears, Molly rubbing herself furiously at the foot of the bed. She rolled back over and gestured for Molly to come up, then, as soon as she was within arm’s reach, hauled her over until she was straddling Sally’s face. She was neatly groomed, much more so than Sally; trimmed and shaved and a lovely seashell-pink, her inner lips just breaching the outer ones, delicate dripping folds that Sally pressed up into with her tongue, lapping with abandon. Molly wasn’t looking, her head tipped back as she lost herself in Sally’s ministrations. She rocked her hips in quiet little jerks that mirrored her whimpers and moans, coming softly in near-silent gasps almost as soon as she had begun, gripping hard behind her at Sally’s arms in a plea for her to stop while she was still so sensitive.

Sally’s heart was still beating wildly when Molly scooted up to lay next to her, angling her legs awkwardly, probably to avoid the wet spot. Molly rolled to her side and pushed Sally’s shoulders until they were spooning, then kissed the nape of her neck tenderly. “That was all right, wasn’t it?”

“Hm?” Sally shook the post-coital haze from her head. “Oh, god, yeah. Course it was.”

“Not how you usually like it, I just had a feeling—” Molly began to stroke Sally’s shoulder and sides, her damp fingers dragging against her skin.

“You’re good with those, Molls. I trust you to know what you’re doing.”

Molly breathed deeply. Sally realized what she’d said. And hell, how could she trust Molly? How could she let herself be so vulnerable again? She was tense all over, and Molly’s hand trailed to Sally’s belly, her little finger just grazing the top line of her pubic hair. “I’m good for it, Sally. I don’t expect you’ll believe me just yet, but I am. Just. Just let me keep taking care of you for a while, yeah?”

And while Sally’s mind spun round, worrying over all the potential disasters ahead of them, her body calmed itself, her soft underbelly exposed under Molly’s palm. Her mind quieted. She thought:

_Yeah_.


End file.
